English Classics, Etc., 



Classes in English Literature, Reading, Grammar, etc. 

EDITED BT EMINENT / ,NGLISH AND AMERICAN SCHOLARS. 

Each Volume contains a S. etch of the Author^s Life, Prefatory and 
Explanatory Notes, etc., etc. 

These Volumes are thoroughly adapted for Schools in which English 
Literature forms a branch of study, or where a carefully-selected por- 
tion of some English Classic is selected for minute examination, or 
for supplementary reading matter. The notes are unusually full and 
exhaustive, occupying in many volumes nearly half the book. Ety- 
mology is attended to tl roughout, the derivations of all the more 
difficult words being give i. In short, they supply the student with all 
the information necessary to a perfect understanding and just appre- 
ciation of the text, and incidentally communicate much useful philo- 
logical and general knowledge. 

No. 1 Byron's Prophecy of Dante. (Cantos I. aad II.) 
** 2 Milton's L' Allegro and II Penseroso. 
" 8 Lord Bacon's Essays, Civil and Moral. (Selected.) 
" 4 Byron's Prisoner of Chillon. 
" 5 Moore's Fire-Worshippers. (Lalla Rookh. Selected from Parts I. 

and II.) 
" 6 Goldsmith's Deserted Tillage. 
" 7 Scott's Marmion. (Selections from Canto VI.) 
" 8 Scott s Lay of the Last Minstrel. (Introduction and Canto I.) 
" 9 Burns' Cotter's Saturday Night, and Other Poems. 
" 10 CrabLe's The Village. 

" 11 Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. (Abridgment of Part I.) 
" 12 Maeaulwy's Essay on Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 
" 13 Macaulay's Armada and other Poems. 
" 14 Shakespeare's Merchant of Venlee. ^Splectinna from 

IV.) 
*« 15 Goldsmit* s Traveller. 
" 16 Hogg's Q een's Wake. 
" IT Coleridge . Ancient Mariner. 
" 18 Addison's . Jlr Koger de Coverley. 



** 19 Gray's T ".ieg t in a Country « hurchyard. ^^///mqtqm $. v 



26 Scott's Ludj of the Lake. .Canto I.) 

St -ihakespeare's As tou Like It, etc ^feleettons.l 

22 Shakespeare's Kin.T John and King Kichard II. (^lec.ons.) 

28 Shakespeare s King Henry IV.., Kir King Henry 

VI. (Selections.) ***& 

24 Shakespeare^s Henry VIII., and Julius Csesar. iSp'.u 

(continued.) 



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English Classics— Continued. 

Wordsworth's Excursion. (Book I.) 
Pope's Essay on Criticism. 
Spenser's Faerie Queene. (Cantos I. and II.) 
Cowper's Task. (Book I.) 
Milton's Comus. 
Tennyson's Enoch Arden. 
Irving's Sketch Book. (Selections.) 
Dickens' Christmas Carol. (Condensed.) 
Carlyle's Hero as a Prophet. 
Macaulay's Warren Hastings. (Condensed.) 
Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. (Condensed.) 
Tennysonte The Two Voices and A Dream of Fair Women. 
Memory Quotations. 
Cavalier Poets. 

Dry den's Alexander's Feast and MacFlecknoe. 
Keats' The Eve of St. Agnes. 
41 Irving's Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 
Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. 
Le Row's How to Teach Reading. 
Webster's Bunker Hill Orations. 

The Academy Orthoepist. A Manual of Pronunciation. 
Milton's Lyeidas and Hymn on the Nativity. 
Bryant's Thanatopsis, and other Poems. 
Ruskin's Modern Painters. (Selections.) 

The Shakespeare Speaker. Selections from Shakespeare for dec- 
lamation. 
Thackeray's Roundabout Papers. 
Webster's Oration on Adams and Jeflferson. 
Brown's Rab and His Friends. 
Morris's Life and Death of Jason. 
Burke's Speech on American Taxation. 
Pope's Rape of the Lock. 
Tennyson's Elaine. 

Tennyson's In Memoriam. (Condensed.) 
Church's Story of the ^Eneid. 
Church's Story of the Iliad. 
Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to Lilliput. 
Macaulay's Essay on Lord Bacon. (Condensed.) 
The Alcestis of Euripides. English Version by Rev. R. Potter, M.A. 

Others in preparation. From 82 to 64 Pages each, 16mo. 



Published by Clark & Maynard, New York. 



SHAKESPEARE'S 

w 



The Winter's Tale. 



Introduction, Notes, Examination Papers, and 
Plan of Preparation. 



(selected.) 




By BRAINERD 






Professor of the English Language and Literature in the Brooklyn 

Polytechnic Institute, and author of a " Text-Book on Rhetoric, 

a " Text-Book on English Literature," and one of the authors 

of Reed & Kellogg 's " Graded Lessons in English" 

and " Higher Lessons in English." 



New York : 
Effingham Maynard & Co., Publishers, 

771 Broadway and 67 & 69 Ninth St. 
1890. 






KELLOGG'S EDITIONS. 

Shakespeare's Plays, 

WITH NOTES. 

Uniform in style and price with this volume. 

THUS FAR COMPRISE : 

MERCHANT OF VENICE. 

KING HENRY V. 

AS YOU LIKE IT. 

JULIUS C>*ESAR. 

KING LEAR. 

MACBETH. 

TEMPEST. 

HAMLET. 

KING HENRY VIII. 

KING HENRY IV., Part I. 

KING RICHARD III. 

A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM. 

A WINTER'S TALE. 



Copyright, 1890, by 
EFFINGHAM MAYNARD & CO. 



til 



EDITOR'S NOTE. 



The text here presented, adapted for use in mixed 
classes, has been carefully collated with that of six or 
seven of the latest and best editions. Where there was 
any disagreement those readings have been adopted 
which seemed most reasonable and were support _d by 
the best authority. 

The notes of English editors have been freely used. 
Those taken as the basis of our work have been rigor- 
ously pruned wherever they were thought too learned 
or too minute, or contained matter that for any other 
reason seemed unsuited to our purpose. We have 
generously added to them, also, wherever they seemed 
to be lacking. B. K. 




^''feffl 



v ***L 



GENERAL NOTICE. 



" An attempt has been made in these new editions to 
interpret Shakespeare by the aid of Shakespeare himself. 
The Method of Comparison has been constantly employ- 
ed ; and the language used by him in one place has been 
compared with the language used in other places in simi- 
lar circumstances, as well as with older English and with 
newer English. The text has been as carefully and as 
thoroughly annotated as the text of any Greek or Latin 
classic. 

" The first purpose in this elaborate annotation is, of 
course the full working out of Shakespeare's meaning. 
The Editor has in all circumstances taken as much pains 
with this as if he had been making out the difficult and 
obscure terms of a will in which he himself was personally 
interested ; and he submits that this thorough excavation 
of the meaning of a really profound thinker is one of the 
very best kinds of training that a boy or girl can receive at 
school. This is to read the very mind of Shakespeare, and 
to weave his thoughts into the fibre of one's own mental 
constitution. And always new rewards come to the care- 
ful reader— in the shape of new meanings, recognition of 

S 



VI 



thoughts he had before missed, of relations between the 
characters that had hitherto escaped him. For reading 
Shakespeare is just like examining Nature ; there are no 
hollownesses, there is no scamped work, for Shakespeare 
is as patiently exact and as first-hand as Nature herself. 

" Besides this thorough working-out of Shakespeare's 
meaning, advantage has been taken of the opportunity to 
teach his English — to make each play an introduction to 
the English of Shakespeare. For this purpose copi- 
ous collections of similar phrases have been gathered from 
other plays ; his idioms have been dwelt upon ; his pecu- 
liar use of words ; his style and his rhythm. Some 
Teachers may consider that too many instances are given ; 
but, in teaching, as in everything else, the old French say- 
ing is true : Asscz tfy a, s*il trop it'y a. The Teacher 
need not require each pupil to give him all the instances 
collected. If each gives one or two, it will probably be- 
enough ; and, among them all, it is certain that one or two 
will stick in the memory. It is probable that, for those pu- 
pils who do not study either Greek or Latin, this close ex- 
amination of every word and phrase in the text of Shake- 
speare will be the best substitute that can be found for the 
study of the ancient classics. 

" It were much to be hoped that Shakespeare should 
become more and more of a study, and that every boy 
and girl should have a thorough knowledge of at least one 
play of Shakespeare before leaving school. Tt would be 
one of the best lessons in human life, without the chance 
of a polluting or degrading experience. It would also 
have the effect of bringing back into the too pale and for- 
mal English of modern times a large number of pithy and 



vii 

vigorous phrases which would help to develop as well as 
to reflect vigor in the characters of the readers. Shake- 
speare used the English language with more power than 
any other writer that ever lived — he made it do more and 
say more than it had ever done ; he made it speak in a 
more original way ; and his combinations of words are per- 
petual provocations and invitations to originality and to 
newness of insight." — J. M. D. Meiklejohn, M.A., 
Professor of the Theory, History, and Practice of Educa- 
tion in the University of St, Andrews, 



Shakespeare's Grammar. 

Shakespeare lived at a time when the grammar and vocahulary of 
the English language were in a state of transition. Various pomts 
were not yet settled ; and so Shakespeare's grammar is not only 
somewhat different from our own but is by no means uniform in 
itself. In the Elizabethan age, "Almost any part of speech can be 
used as any other part of speech. -An adverb can be used as a verb, 
' They askance their eyes \ ' as a noun, ' the backward and abysm 
of time ;' or as an adjective, 'a seldom pleasure.' Any noun, ad- 
jective, or neuter [intrans.] verb can be used as an active [trans.] 
verb. You can ' happy ' your friend, ' malice ' or ' foot ' your en- 
emy, or ' fall ' an axe on his neck. An adjective can be used as 
an adverb; and you can speak and act 'easy,' 'free,' 'excel- 
lent ; ' or as a noun, and you can talk of ' fair ' instead of ' beau- 
ty,' and ' a pale ' instead of ' a paleness.' Even the pronouns are 
not exempt from these metamorphoses. A ' he ' is used for a man, 
and a lady is described by a gentleman as ' the fairest she he has yet 
beheld.' In the second place, every variety of apparent grammati- 
cal inaccuracy meets us. He for him, him for he ; spoke and took for 
spoken and taken ; plural nominatives with singular verbs ; relatives 
omitted where they are now considered necessary ; unnecessary an- 
tecedents inserted ; shall for will, should for would, would for wish ,* 
to omitted after '2 ought] inserted after i I durst;" 1 double nega- 
tives • double comparatives (' more better,' &c.) and superlatives ; 
such followed by which [or that], that by as, as used for as if ; that 
for so that ; and lastly some verbs apparently with two nominatives, 
and others without any nominative at all."— Dr. Abbott's Shakespe- 
rian Grammar. 

Shakespeare's Versification. 

Shakespeare's Plays are written mainly in what is known as un- 
fimed, or blank-verse ; but they contain a number of riming, and a 
considerable number of prose, lines. As a general rule, rime is 
much commoner in the earlier than in the later plays. Thus, Love's 
Labor's Lost contains nearly 1,100 riming lines, while (if we except 
the songs) Winter's Tale has none. The Merchant of Venice has 
124. 

In speaking we lay a stress on particular syllables : this stress is 
called accent. When the words of a composition are so arranged 
that the accent recurs at regular intervals, the composition is said to 
be metrical or rhythmical. Rhythm, or Metre, is an embellishment 
of language which, though it does not constitute poetry itself, yet 
provides it with a suitably elegant dress ; and hence most mod?"Q 
poets have written in metre. In blank verse the lines consist u**» 



aXy of ten syllables, of which the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and 
Jeath are accented. The line consists, therefore, of five parts, each 
of which contains an unaccented followed by an accented syllable, 
as in the word attend. Each of these five parts forms what is called 
afoot or measure ; and the five together form a pentameter. " Penta- 
meter "is a Greek word signifying "five measures." This is the 
usual form of a line of blank verse. But a long poem composed en- 
tirely of such lines would be monotonous, and for the sake of variety 
several important modifications have been introduced. 

(a) After the tenth syllable, one or two unaccented syllables are 
sometimes added ; as— 

" Me-thought | you said | you nei \ ther lend \ nor bor I row.' 1 '' 

(b) In any foot the accent may be shifted from the second to the 
first syllable, provided two accented syllables do not come together. 

" Pluck' the | young suck' | ing cubs' \ from the' \ she bear'. | * 

(c) In such words as "yesterday," "voluntary," "honesty," the 
syllables -day, -to-, and ty falling in the place of the accent, are, 
for the purposes of the verse, regarded as truly accented. 

" Bars' me I the right' \ of vol'- | un-ta' I ry choos' \ ing.'''' 

(d) Sometimes we have a succession of accented syllables ; this 
occurs with monosyllabic feet only. 

" Why, noiv, blow wind, sweU billow, and swim bark.' 1 '' 

(e) Sometimes, but more rarely, two or even three unaccented 
syllables occupy the place of one ; as — 

"He says | he does, | be-ing then \ most flat \ ter-edy 

(f) Lines may have any number of feet from one to six. 

Finally, Shakespeare adds much to the pleasing variety of hi? 
blank verse by placing the pauses in different parts of the line 
(especially after the second or third foot), instead of placing them 
all at the ends of lines, as was the earlier custom. 

N. B. — In some cases the rhythm requires that what we usually 
pronounce as one syllable shall be divided into two, asfl-er (fire), 
su-er (sure), mi-el /mile), &c. ; too-elve (twelve), jaiv-ee (joy), &c. 
Similarly, she-on (-tion or -sion). 

It is very important to give the pupil plenty of ear-training by 
means of formal scansion. This will greatly assist him id **» 
reading. 



PLAN OF STUDY 



'PERFECT POSSESSION/ 



To attain to the standard of ' Perfect Pos- 
session,' the reader ought to have an inti- 
mate and ready knowledge of the subject. 
(See opposite page.) 

The student ought, first of all, to read the 
play as a pleasure ; then to read it over again, 
with his mind upon the characters and the 
plot ; and lastly, to read it for the meanings, 
grammar, &c. 

With the help of the scheme, he can easily 
draw up for himself short examination papers 
(i) on each scene, (2) on each act, (3) on 
the whole play. 



IX 



1. The Plot and Story of the Play. 

(a) The general plot ; 
(p) The special incidents. 

2. The Characters: Ability to give a connected account 

of all that is done and most of what is said by- 
each character in the play. 

3. The Influence and Interplay of the Characters upon 

each other. 

(a) Relation of A to B and of B to A ; 

(b) Relation of A to C and D. 

4. Complete Possession of the Language. 

(a) Meanings of words ; 

(&) Use of old words, or of words in an old mean- 
ing; 

(c) Grammar; 

(d) Ability to quote lines to illustrate a gram- 

matical point. 
& Power to Reproduce, or Quote. 

(a) What was said by A or B on a particular 

occasion ; 
(d) What was said by A in reply to B ; 

(c) What argument was used by C at a particu- 

lar juncture ; 

(d) To quote a line in instance of an idiom or of 

a peculiar meaning. 
6. Power to Locate. 

(a) To attribute a line or statement to a certain 

person on a certain occasion ; 
(5) To cap a line ; 
(c) To fill in the right word or epithet. 



INTRODUCTION 
TO 

THE WINTER'S TALE. 



The Winter's Tale appears to have first seen public 
light in the spring of 1611 ; and the internal evidence 
from style and thought shows, even if no external evi- 
dence were forthcoming, that it must have been one of 
Shakespeare's latest plays, written not merely when 
his wisdom of life and his power over language were 
most complete, but when, after all his struggles, in- 
ward and outward, he had reached that perfection of 
peace which his latest plays so delightfully reflect. 

For the materials of his plot, Shakespeare has, as 
frequently, been content to take a well known novel of 
the time, in the present instance, that of Pandosto* or 
Dorastus and Fawnia, by Robert Greene; but, though 
closely following the story in its main incidents, more 
especially in the earlier portions, he has introduced 
characters (Antigonus, Paulina, and Autolycus) which 
have no antitypes in the novel, and by his spiritual 
treatment of the subject has made it as much his own 

10 



INTRODUCTION. n 

as if he had drawn upon his invention for the whole 
story. 

In regard to the general spirit of The Winter's Tale, 
no other criticism with which I am acquainted sums it 
up so well as Professor Dowden's words when, in refer- 
ence to the plays of Shakespeare's final period, he speaks 
of their " pathetic yet august serenity." Of the same 
group he further remarks that in each of them " While 
grievous errors of the heart are shown to us, and 
wrongs of man as cruel as those of the great tragedies, 
at the end there is a resolution of the dissonance, a 
reconciliation. This is the word which interprets 
Shakespeare's latest plays — reconciliation, ' word over 
all, beautiful as the sky.' It is not, as in the earlier 
comedies — The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Much Ado 
abotU Nothing, As You Like It, and others — a mere de- 
nouement. The resolution of the discords in these latest 
plays is not a mere stage necessity, or a necessity of 
composition, resorted to by the dramatist to effect an 
ending of his play, and little interesting his imagination 
or his heart. Its significance here is ethical and spirit- 
ual ; it is a moral necessity." And again, " Over the 
beauty of youth and the love of youth, there is shed, 
in these plays of Shakespeare's final period, a clear yet 
tender luminousness, not elsewhere to be perceived in 
his writings. In his earlier plays, Shakespeare writes 
concerning young men and maidens, their loves, their 
mirth, their griefs, as one who is among them, who 
has a lively, personal interest in their concerns, who 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

can make merry with them, treat them familiarly, and, 
if need be, can mock them into good sense. There is 
nothing in these early plays wonderful, strangely beau- 
tiful, pathetic about youth and its joys and sorrows. 
In the histories and tragedies, as was to be expected, 
more massive, broader, or more profound objects of 
interest engaged the poet's imagination. But in these 
latest plays, the beautiful pathetic light is always pres- 
ent. There are the sufferers, aged, experienced, tried 
— Queen Katherine, Prospero, Hermione. And over 
against these there are the children absorbed in their 
happy and exquisite egoism, — Perdita and Miranda, 
Florizel and Ferdinand, and the boys of old Belarius." 
Greene's novel, so far from resembling Helena's de- 
scription of herself and Hermia, 

" Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, 
But yet a union in partition, 1 ' 

is in reality two stories lightly linked together by the 
circumstance that the same persons play a part in both. 
The former of the two stories, that of Leontes' jeal- 
ousy and his vengeance upon Hermione, occupies the 
first three acts; the latter story, dealing with the loves 
of Perdita and Florizel, and the reconciliation of Her- 
mione and Leontes born of those loves, completes the 
play. Gervinus very aptly speaks of the "wasp-like 
body of Greene's story," and remarks, " While Shakes- 
peare has at other times permitted in his dramas the 
existence of a two-fold action, connected by a common 



IN TROD UCTION. 1 3 

idea, it was not necessary, in the instance before us, to 
sever the wasp-like body of Greene's story, nor could 
he have entirely concentrated the two actions ; he could 
but connect them indistinctly by a leading idea in both, 
although the manner in which he has outwardly con- 
nected them is a delicate and spirited piece of art, 
uniting, as he has done, tragedy and comedy, making 
the one elevate the other, and thus enriching the stage 
with a tragi-comic pastoral, a combination wholly 
unknown even to the good Polonius." 

The curtain rises upon the Court of Leontes, King 
of Sicily, which his friend Polixenes, King of Bohemia, 
is preparing to leave, after having paid a visit of nine 
months' length. Failing to persuade him to stay 
longer, Leontes urges his queen to see whether her 
influence with their guest may not be more powerful 
than his own. Hermione, obeying, succeeds. Here- 
upon Leontes gives way to an outburst of passionate 
jealousy during which he communicates to his old 
servant, Camillo, his certain assurance of his wife's dis- 
loyalty, and after much importunity obtains from him 
a promise to poison Polixenes. The promise is, how- 
ever, given merely in order that time may be gained 
to facilitate the escape of Polixenes, in company with 
whom Camillo determines to flee from his master's 
wrath. Foiled in this point, Leontes can only wreak 
his vengeance upon his wife, whom he consigns to 
prison, pending her trial for adultery and conspiracy. 
Meanwhile ambassadors are dispatched to Delphos to 



i 4 IN TROD UCTION. 

procure the response of the Oracle as to Hermione's 
guilt or innocence. On their return, the trial proceeds, 
Hermione defends herself with a noble eloquence, 
and the response, being read out, declares her entire 
innocence, brands Leontes as a tyrant, and foretells 
the consequences of his -cruelty. But not even this is 
able to shake Leontes' confidence in his own penetra- 
tion. Or, if he is at all shaken, the vindictive feelings 
he has been hugging to his heart will not allow him to 
confess his error : — 

" There is no truth at all i 1 the oracle ; 
The sessions shall proceed ; this is mere falsehood," 

is his answer to the rejoicings of the lords. The 
words are scarce spoken when news is brought of Ma- 
millius' sudden death. Leontes quails before this evi- 
dent token of heaven's wrath ; and his tenderness to- 
wards Hermione returns as she goes off into a swoon. 
But a greater blow is to follow. In a few minutes 
Paulina, who had accompanied Hermione when borne 
out of the court of justice, re-enters with the news of 
her death, and heaps the bitterst reproaches upon the 
now deeply-penitent King. The queen, of course, 
had not really died ; but the moment had come for 
putting into execution the stratagem, which we may 
suppose to have been already planned, whereby she is 
to be concealed from the king's knowledge until such 
time as his repentance and expiation should seem to 
be adequate to the enormity of his crime. The act 



IN TROD UCTION. 1 5 

closes with a scene in which Antigonus, with the in- 
fant Perdita, lands on the coast of Bohemia, he, on 
condition of her life being spared, having consented to 
the king's terms 

" That thou bear it 
To some remote and desert place quite out 
Of our dominions, and that there thou leave it, 
Without more mercy, to it own protection 
And favor of the climate. 1 ' 
Antigonus' literal discharge of the king's command 
has hardly beep *"" — wormed when he is pursued and 
torn to pieces uy a bear. His death is followed by the 
entrance of a shepherd who discovers Perdita, and car- 
ries her home to his cottage to be brought up as his 
own child. 

We have now gone far enough in the story to take 
a retrospect of Hermione's bearing as seen in the mat- 
ter which caused Leontes' outburst of jealousy, and 
her subsequent bearing when accused of, and brought 
to trial for, an offense of which she knew herself so 
clear. In reality, and to any one not predisposed, 
whether by temperament or by imagined evidence, to 
suspicions wholly unjust, her behavior towards Polix- 
enes is nothing more than that of a pure-minded woman, 
who, enjoying to the full the friendship of a high- 
souled and altogether admirable man, is also persuaded 
that the greater her kindness to her guest, the better 
will she please a husband between whom and herself 
there had been mutual love and trust throughout a 
long course of years. Conscious of her complete loy- 



16 INTRODUCTION.] 

alty, she is less afraid to be outspoken in her inter- 
course with one of the opposite sex than would have 
been the case were there any coquetry in her nature. 
Hence her playful persistency in the friendly passage 
at arms with Polixenes, hence the undisguised marks 
of intimacy shown towards him when, he having 
yielded to her persuasion, they converse together in 
Leontes' presence, and are seen by him as they retire 
to the garden. 

It should, I think, be here noted, inregard to the 
courtesies which pass between them, that in Shake- 
speare's day, — and of course the manners here por- 
trayed are those of that day, — the fashions in vogue 
admitted in some respects of a more demonstrative 
familiarity of outward behavior than would accord 
with the reserved decorum of modern life. This we 
must bear in mind when considering Leontes' com- 
ments on the behavior of Hermione and Polixenes ; 
for, omitting those instances which had their existence 
in Leontes' imagination only, the familiarities which 
they make no attempt to conceal, and which he so 
painfully misconstrues, are such as under the social 
code of the present day would be rightly taken to 
mean something more than mere friendship. So un- 
conscious, however, is Hermione of anything like im- 
modesty, that up to the moment when she tells Leontes 
that he will find them together in the garden, neither 
she nor Polixenes is in the least aware that their be- 
havior had given rise to the faintest suspicion in his 



IN TROD UCTIOiV. 1 7 

mind. It is therefore with something more than sur- 
prise, with an absolute incredulity, that she receives 
the first manifestation of her husband's jealousy. 
"What is this? Sport?" she says in answer to his 
words , 

" Give me the boy : I 'm glad you did not nurse him : 
Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you 
Have too much blood in him.' 1 

Leontes then proceeds to speak without any ambiguity 
of charge, telling her that she is with child by Polix- 
enes. Even this plain accusation is treated as some- 
thing that cannot be really, seriously, maintained by 
him : it would be enough, she says, for her to deny 
the imputation, and he would believe her, whatever 
his inclination to doubt. Further scorn heaped upon 
her only provokes the calmly indignant reply that 
Leontes does " but mistake." And when at last, 
pouring out all his abundance of vituperation, he orders 
her to prison, her theme is the grief that he will feel 
when he comes to a just knowledge of the wrong he 
has done her, and the patience that it behoves her to 
show under circumstances so untoward that she can 
only believe " There 's some ill planet reigns," some 
supernatural influence which has distraught her once 
loving and tender husband. Hurried off to prison, she 
bears herself with that dignity which under all changes 
of fortune is so peculiarly characteristic of her, though 
her grief is at the same time so terrible as to cause her 
to be delivered of a child " something before her 



1 8 IN TR OD UC TION. 

time." Then, when still scarcely in a condition to go 
about, even if surrounded with all the comforts and at- 
tentions to which she had been used, she is summoned 
before a court of justice to be tried for her life ' ' 'fore 
who please to come and hear," and to be treated by 
her husband in terms. of shameless brutality. In an- 
swer to her arraignment, though well aware that denial 
of her guilt is not likely to avail her much, she touch - 
ingly asserts her continence and chastity during her 
past life, appealing to the divine powers in support 
of her asseveration, and even to that husband from 
whose vindictive unreason she is suffering so keenly. 
Life and honor are at stake with her ; for the former 
she cares nothing, now that her husband's love has for- 
saken her ; for the latter, more especially that her 
children must be partakers in the result of the trial, she 
will fight with such weapons as are in her hands. 
She asks, therefore, whether before Polixenes' visit 
she had ever been guilty of aught that should invite 
suspicion ; she points out that to him she had shown 
only such love as became a lady like herself, only such 
love as Leontes himself had enjoined her to show ; she . 
denies all knowledge of any conspiracy between Polix- 
enes and Camillo ; she bewails the loss of her children, 
her boy from whose presence she is ' ' barr'd like one 
infectious," her new-born girl, from her breast 
" hal'd out to murder ; " she refers to the indignities to 
which she has been subjected ; and closes her defense 
by reiterating her indifference to life while yet so care- 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

ful of her honor, and by invoking the oracle to protect 
her against condemnation upon mere surmise, against 
a judgment which shall be " rigor and not law." 

The jealousy of Leontes has been contrasted with 
that of Othello ; and the points are many in which the 
character of the passion exhibited differs radically in 
the two men. In the case of Othello, the first suspi- 
cions are prompted by another, and fortified with a 
fiendish ingenuity of suggestion and circumstantial 
evidence sufficient to convince almost any husband, 
more especially a husband so diffident as was Othello 
of his power to please a woman. In the case of Le- 
ontes, the suspicious circumstances are wholly of his 
own creation; and the only person (Camillo) whom he 
takes into his confidence when he first openly gives 
way to his passion, uses every possible argument to 
convince him that he is the subject of a thoroughly 
baseless and unworthy delusion. Secondly, the jeal- 
ousy of Othello is pathetic, tender, as far as possible 
impersonal, and carrying with it " confusion and de- 
spair at the loss of what had been to him the fairest 
thing on earth " (Dowden). The jealousy of Leontes 
is hard, vindictive, eminently selfish, and unac- 
companied by any reluctance as to the course he is 
about to pursue. 

There are other circumstances in which this contrast 
might be developed ; and it will, I think, be worth 
while to notice at some length one point which does 
not seem to have received from the critics such investi- 



20 IN TR OD UC TION. 

gation as it deserves. I refer to the birth and growth 
of the passion in Leontes' mind. By general consent 
that passion appears to be regarded as something sud- 
den, almost instantaneous, — the outcome of a single 
incident. Thus Gervinus remarks, " The idea of his 
wife's faithlessness arises in Leontes from the quick 
result of her entreaty to PoHxenes to prolong his stay 
a little. . . . This actually is the whole ground for 
Leontes' jealousy." According to Dowden, " Her- 
mione is suspected of a sudden, and shameless dishon- 
or." . . . Hudson, who discusses the point more at 
length, writes, " In the delineation of Leontes there 
is an abruptness of change which strikes us, at first 
view, as not a little a-clash with nature, . . . his jeal- 
ousy shoots in comet-like, as something unprovided 
for in the general ordering of his character, which 
causes this feature to appear as if it were suggested 
rather by the exigencies of the stage than by the natu- 
ral workings of human passion. And herein the poet 
seems at variance with himself ; his usual method being 
to unfold a passion in its rise and progress, so that we 
go along with it freely from its origin to its consumma. 
tion. And certainly there is no accounting for Le- 
ontes' conduct, but by supposing a predisposition to 
jealousy in him, which, however, has been hitherto 
kept latent by his wife's clear, firm, serene discreetness, 
but which breaks out into sudden and frightful activity 
as soon as she, under a special pressure of motives, 
slightly over-acts the confidence of friendship." How- 



IN TROD UCTION. 2 1 

ever reluctantly, this critic seems to accept the idea 
that Leontes' jealousy was a sudden and almost unac- 
countable birth. Such suddenness, if established, 
of course enhances the madness of the consequent ac- 
tion. But is it established ? I venture to doubt this. 
In the novel, at all events, Leontes' doubts are gradual 
and of considerable duration; there was no suddenness 
of jealousy on the king's part. Has Shakespeare in 
Leontes' jealousy given us a picture of what is unnat- 
ural, almost monstrous? In the first place, I think 
that his familiarity with the novel may perhaps have 
unconsciously led him to treat that which was so well 
known to himself as if it were equally well known to 
those for whom he was writing ; and, the interest of 
the story beginning at the moment when Leontes' 
jealousy first openly manifests itself, he may not have 
thought it necessary to show in any detailed manner 
what the stages of that jealousy had been. He could 
not have failed to note the minuteness of description 
with which Greene records the progress of the passion 
in Leontes' mind ; nor are we in this matter without 
echoes in the play of the language of the novel. For 
instance, when Leontes says, 

" I 'm angling now, 
Though you perceive me not how I give line," 

we have but a dramatic version of the narrative, ' ' Hee 
began to watch them more narrowely to see if he 
coulde gette any true or certaine proofe to confirme his 



22 INTRODUCTION. 

doubtfull suspition " ; just as Camillo's words of ad- 
vice, after promising to poison Polixenes, 

" Go then ; and with a countenance as clear 
As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohemia," 

and Leontes' answer, I 

i 

" I will seem friendly, as thou hast advis'd me," 

are but the equivalent of another sentence in Greene, 
" Whereupon, desirous to revenge so great an injury, 
he thought best to dissemble the grudge with a faire 
and friendly countenance, and so under the shape of a 
friend to shew him the kicke of a foe" ; while Her- 
mione's remark of surprise, 

1 ' You look 
As if you held a brow of much distraction," 

is paralleled by the " lowring countenance " and "un- 
accustomed frowns" of the novel. If, as Hudson 
apologetically remarks, " Shakespeare had a course of 
action marked out for him in the tale," we may a 
priori suppose that he would be likely to follow it so 
far as it accorded with nature ; and, in a matter of 
this kind, however it might be in others, he could have 
nothing to gain by increasing the improbabilities of the 
plot. But, further, I hold that in the play itself we 
have plain indications that the growth of Leontes' pas- 
sion had been a gradual one. These indications are, 
no doubt, retrospective, but none the less clear for 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

that. Consider, first, Leontes' speech to Camillo in 
the second scene of the first act : — 

" To bide upon 't, thou art not honest ; or, 
If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward, 
Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining 
From course requirM ; or else thou must be counted 
A servant grafted in my serious trust 
And therein negligent ; or else a fool 
That seest a game played home, the rich stake drawn, 
And tafcst it all for jest." 

Surely, this is the language not of a man who has on a 
sudden discovered or doubted his wife's loyalty, bat of 
one who has long doubted, and who, for that reason, 
cannot understand that what has seemed so full of sus- 
picion to him, should not have been equally suspicious 
to others also. His next speech is even more de- 
cisively contemptuous of those who have been blind 
to things staring himself so fully in the face : — 

"Ha 1 not you seen, Camillo,— 
But that's past doubt, you have, or your eye-gla 
Is thicker than a cuckold 's horn, — or heard* 
For, to a vision so apparent, rumor 
Cannot be mute, — or thought, — for cogitation 
Resides not in that matt that does not think, — 
My wife is slippery ? If thou wilt confess, 
Or else be impudently negative, 
To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say 
My wife 's a hobby-horse, deserves a name 
As rank as any flax-wench that puts to 
Before her troth-plight :" 

that is, in plain language, you must have constantly 



24 INTRODUCTION. 

seen, as I have, their questionable familiarities ; you 
must have constantly heard that talked about which 
was so evident to everybody in the court ; you must 
have constantly ruminated over a subject which cannot 
but have entered into the mind of any one capable of 
thinking at all. And when Camillo still upholds the 
honor of his mistress and rebukes the unjustifiable 
suspicions to which he has been made to listen, Leontes 
bursts forth with a narration of overt acts which from 
time to time have come before his eyes : — 

" Is whispering nothing- ? 
Is leaning cheek to cheek ? is meeting noses ? 
Kissing with inside lip ? stopping the career 
Of laughing with a sigh ? — a note infallible 
Of breaking honesty— horsing foot on foot ? 
Skulking in corners ? wishing clocks more swift ? 
Hours, minutes ? noon, midnight ? and all eyes 
Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only, 
That would unseen be wicked ? is this nothing ? 
Why, then the world and all that 's in 't is nothing ; 
The covering sky is nothing ; Bohemia nothing ; 
My wife is nothing ; nor nothing have these nothings, 
If this be nothing. 1 ' 

Some of the familiarities here mentioned are such as 
Leontes observed immediately after Polixenes had 
yielded to Hermione's entreaty to stay ; but there are 
others of them that cannot but refer to an earlier ex- 
perience, and to passages in their intercourse of con- 
siderable duration. In fact, Leontes' words indicate 
more than anything else a long-continued watchfulness 



IN TR OD UC TION. 2 5 

1 
that makes him alert to misconstrue any courtesies 
however innocent, and alert also to imagine familiari- 
ties which he could not have seen. Lastly, when 
Camillo refuses to poison Polixenes because he cannot 
be brought to "believe this crack to be in" his 
" dread mistress," Leontes fiercely turns upon him 
with the question whether any man, and he himself of 
all men, would be fool enough to cherish a maddening 
conviction unless he had good and sufficient proof of 
that which caused him such torture : — 

" Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled, 
T" 1 appoint myself in this vexation, sully 
The purity and whiteness of my sheets, — 
Which to preserve is sleep, which being spotted 
Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps, — 
Give scandal to the blood o 1 the prince my son, 
Who I do think is mine and love as mine, 
Without ripe moving to V ? Would I do this ? 
Could man so blench .*" 

Are these the arguments of one who on the spur of 
the moment would jump to the condemnation of his 
wife, more especially such a wife as Hermione, and a 
wife for all these years acknowledged by him to be 
what we know Hermione was ? Do they not rather 
indicate a long brooding of jealousy, a thorough con- 
sciousness of the terrible step he is taking, a conviction 
that the evidence which had been accumulating for 
months is by this latest proof of Hermione's influence 
over Polixenes now made irrefragable ? It is no an- 
swer to say that his jealousy was baseless and unrea- 



26 INTRODUCTION. 

soning. The demon having once been allowed en- 
trance into his bosom, constant communing with it 
would only confirm and exaggerate suspicions which, 
if sudden, would probably have yielded to Camillo's 
arguments. When dwelt upon, 

" Trifles light as air 
Are, to the jealous, confirmations strong 
As proofs of holy writ ;" 

and in the blind perversity and obstinate tenacity of 
belief shown by one hitherto so free from anything like 
distrust, it seems to me that we must rather recognize 
his inability any longer to control the fierce current 
which had for some time past been threatening to 
carry him away. 

We now come to the second part of the story which 
occupies the last two acts. Sixteen years having 
elapsed since the trial of Hermione, Time, with a 
passing reference to what has happened in the interval, 
comes forward as Chorus to apologize for the demand 
made upon the spectators' imagination, and to explain 
the change of scene, which is now laid in Bohemia. 
Here we find Camillo imploring Polixenes to allow 
him to return to Sicily, there to end his days, and 
Polixenes as earnestly pressing Camillo not to leave 
him. Among other arguments which the king uses 
is his anxiety about his son, Florizel, whom he sus- 
pects of having fallen in love with a certain shepherd's 
daughter. Camillo yields to the king's entreaties ; 
and, with the intervention of a scene which introduces 



INTRODUCTION. 27 

that delightful rogue, Autolycus, we come to the 
sheep-shearing festival at which Perdita, as the shep- 
herd's putative daughter, presides. During the prog- 
ress of this festival , Florizel in the presence of Polix- 
enes and Camillo, who have come there disguised, is 
on the point of formally betrothing himself to Perdita, 
when the king, unmasking, puts an end to the project. 
Upon the king's subsequent departure, Florizel and 
Perdita determine to elope together. Camillo, desir- 
ous on every account, and more especially as a means 
of procuring his own return home, to effect a reconcil- 
iation between the two kings, suggests to the runa- 
ways that they should proceed to Sicily, Florizel mak- 
ing pretense of a mission of peace from Polixenes. 
So soon as they shall have sailed, he promises to him- 
self to betray their intentions to the king, and so in- 
duce him to follow them. Florizel and Perdita take 
Camillo's advice, and the fifth act opens upon their 
arrival at Leontes' court, where they are received with 
every mark of kindness. Polixenes and Camillo are, 
however, in quick pursuit and reach Sicily close at 
their heels. By means of the clothes and ornaments 
which the old shepherd had preserved, Perdita's real 
birth is discovered and Leontes' consent is given to her 
marriage with Florizel. But before the wedding 
takes place the two kings, with Perdita, Florizel, 
Camillo, etc., pay a visit to the chapel in which Pau- 
lina wishes to show them the statute of Hermione, ex- 
ecuted, as she alleges, by that cunning sculptor, Julio 



28 IN TROD UCTION. 

Romano. The seeming statute proves to be Hermione 
herself, who for sixteen years has been attended upon 
by Paulina, and who, now that the oracle has been 
fulfilled and Leontes' sin expiated by his long penitence, 
restores herself to her husband's arms amid general 
reconciliation and rejoicing. 

In regard to Perdita, having nothing new to put 
forward, I leave the student to Mrs. Jameson's admir- 
able sketch of her character ; referring him to the 
same critic also for an explanation of the one circum- 
stance in the latter half of the play which has given 
rise to some discussion, viz., Hermione's long-endur- 
ing and self-imposed banishment from her husband. 
It may however be of some use to my readers if, in 
reference to the festival which occupies so prominent 
a part in the delineation of Perdita's character, some 
account is given of those held i ' especial honor in by- 
gone days. 

Apart from festivals of a purely religious origin, 
such as Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide, Hallowmas, 
All Souls Day, etc. , etc. , and festivals partly religious, 
partly patriotic, such as St. George's Day, St. Pat- 
rick's Day, St. David's Day, St. Crispin's Day, etc., 
held in honor of the eponymous hero or saint, there 
were others, some of which have now fallen into much 
disuse, that celebrated a particular season of the 
year. Of these the more important were May- 
Day, Sheep-Shearing Time, Midsummer, Harvest- 
Home, and to all of these Shakespeare has frequent 



INTRODUCTION. 29 

allusion. May-Day and Harvest- Home still retain 
much of their popularity, and are celebrated probably 
in every village of any size, though the encroachment 
of the town upon the country has shorn even these of 
some of their enthusiasm. Sheep-Shearing Time com 
mences as soon as the warm weather is so far settlec 
that the sheep may, without danger, lay aside their 
winter clothing ; the following tokens being laid down 
by Dyer in his " Fleece " (book i.) to mark out the 
proper time : — 

" If verdant elder spreads 
Her silver flowers ; if humble daisies yield 
To yellow crowfoot and luxuriant grass, 
Gay shearing time approaches.' 1 

Our ancestors, who took advantage of every natural 
holiday, to keep it long and gladly, celebrated the time 
of sheep-shearing by a feast exclusively rural. 

In our play, the festivities begin with Perdita's pres- 
entation of emblematical flowers to the elder of her 
guests, and the season is denned by her in the words — 

" The year growing ancient, 
Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth 
Of trembling winter ; 11 

and again — 

" Here's flowers for you ; 
Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram ; 
The marigold, that goes to bed wi' th 1 sun 
And with him rises weeping : these are flowers 
Of middle summer, and I think they 're given 
To men of middle age " : 



30 INTRODUCTION. 

while for her younger guests she wishes she had some 
of the flowers that Proserpina " frighted " let ' ' fall 
from Dis's wagon." Then comes the dance of shep- 
herds and shepherdesses, the traffic with the pedler 
in all sorts of fairings, songs and ballads among them,' 
and finally, though the scene is interrupted, the " gal- 
limaufry of gambols," as the old shepherd calls the 
dance of the twelve satyrs. Mr. Wise, who quarrels 
with Shakespeare for "unaccountably" placing the 
festival in " middle summer " instead of at the latter 
end of spring, tells us that the passage in which the 
shepherd speaks of the welcome his wife used to give 
to all, " might to this day stand as a description of a 
harvest-supper at some of the old Warwickshire farm- 
houses"; and Dr. Furnivall notices how happily the 
scene " brings Shakespeare before us, mixing with his 
Stratford neighbors at their sheep-shearing and country 
sports, enjoying the vagabond pedler's gammon and 
talk, delighting in the sweet Warwickshire maidens, 
and buying them "fairings," telling goblin stories to 
the boys . . . and opening his heart afresh to all the 
innocent mirth and the beauty of nature around him." 
The picture is indeed one that betrays in every line 
Shakespeare's comprehensive sympathy; and the more 
it is, dwelt upon and felt, the more fully will his nature 
be understood. In the case of those to whom life in 
England is known only through books, it cannot be 
expected that they should take in all the beauty of this 
wonderful idyll ; yet Indian students will find much in 



IN TROD UCTION. 3 1 

their own folk-lore and festivals of a similar origin that 
will help them to understand what Perdita's feast 
means to such as from their boyhood have known the 
sweet charm of English country-side landscape, bright- 
ened by the simple revels of its peasantry. However 
deeply the noble character and undeserved suffering of 
Hermione may be felt, the first thought that comes 
into an Englishman's mind when The Winter's Tale 
is mentioned, is the thought of Perdita among her 
flowers and her friends. This it is that gives its beauty 
to the play. Elsewhere we are moved to more intense 
pity, to profounder thought, to stronger impulses of 
various sympathy ; but, in beauty, Cymbeline alone of 
all Shakespeare's marvelous creations seems to me to 
take rank above The Winter's Tale. 



32 DRAMA TIS PERSONS. 



DRAMATIS PERSONS. 

Leontes, king of Sicilia. 
Mamillius, young prince of Sicilia. 
Camillo, ] 

• > four Lords of Sicilia. 

Cleomenes, 

Dion, J 

Polixenes, king of Bohemia. 

Florizel, prince of Bohemia. 

Archidamus, a Lord of Bohemia. 

Old Shepherd, reputed father of Perdita. 

Clown, his son. 

Autolycus, a rogue. 

A Mariner. 

A Jailer. 

Hermione, queen to Leontes. 

Perdita, daughter to Leontes and Hermione. 

Paulina, wife to Antigonus. 

Emilia, a lady attending on Hermione. 

_ ' I shepherdesses. 

Dorcas, ) r 

Other Lords and Gentlemen, Ladies, Officers, and 

Servants, Shepherds, and Shepherdesses. 

Time, as Chorus. 
Scene : Sicilia, and Bohemia 



THE WINTER'S TALE. 



ACT I 



Scene I. Antechamber in Leontes' palace. 
Ejiter Camillo and Archidamus. 

Arch. If you shall chance, Camillo, to visit 
Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my ser- 
vices are now on foot, you shall see, as I have 
said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and 
your Sicilia. 

Cam. I think, this coming summer, the King 
of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia the visitation 
which he justly owes him. 

Arch. Wherein our entertainment shall shame 
us we will be justified in our loves; for indeed — 10 

Ca?n. Beseech you, — 

Arch. Verily, I speak it in the freedom of my 
knowledge: we cannot with such magnificence 
— in so rare — I know not what to say. We will 
give you sleepy drinks that your senses, unin- 
telligent of our insufficience, may, though they 
cannot praise us, as little accuse us. 

Cam. You pay a great deal too dear for what's 
given freely. 

33 



34 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act i. 

20 Arch. Believe me, I speak as my understand- 
ing instructs me and as mine honesty puts it to 
utterance. 

Cam. Sicilia cannot show himself over-kind 
to Bohemia. They were trained together in 
their childhoods ; and there rooted betwixt them 
then such an affection which cannot choose but 
branch now. Since their more mature dignities 
and royal necessities made separation of their 
society, their encounters, though not personal, 
30 have been royally attorneyed with interchange 
of gifts, letters, loving embassies that they have 
seemed to be together, though absent ; shook 
hands, as over a vast ; and embraced, as it were, 
from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens 
continue their loves ! 

Arch.. I think there is not in the world either 
malice or matter to alter it. You have an un- 
speakable comfort of your young prince Mamil- 
lius: it is a gentleman of the greatest promise 
40 that ever came into my note. 

Cam. I very well agree with you in the hopes 
of him : it is a gallant child ; one that indeed 
physics the subject, makes old hearts fresh : 
they that went on crutches ere he was born de- 
sire yet their life to see him a man. 

Arch. Would they else be content to die ? 

Cam. Yes ; if there were no other excuse why 
they should desire to live. 

Arch. If the king had no son, they would de- 
50 sire to live on crutches till he had one. 

[Exeunt. 



sc. ii.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 35 

SCENE II. A room of state in the same. 

Enter Leontes, Hermione, Mamillius, Po- 
lixenes, Camillo, and Attendants. 

Pol. Nine changes of the watery star have 
been 
The shepherd's note since we have left our 

throne 
Without a burden : time as long again 
Would be fill'd up, my brother, with our thanks 
And yet we should, for perpetuity, 
Go hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher, 
Yet standing in rich place, I multiply 
With one "We thank you" many thousands 

more 
That go before it. 

Leon. Stay your thanks a while ; 

And pay them when you part. 10 

Pol. Sir, that 's to-morrow. 

I 'm question'd by my fears of what may chance 
Or breed upon our absence ; that may blow 
No sneaping winds at home, to make us say 
" This is put forth too truly !" besides, I have 

stay'd 
To tire your royalty. 

Leon. We 're tougher, brother, 

Than you can put us to 't. 

Pol. No longer stay. 

Leon. One seven-night longer. 20 

Pol. Very sooth, to-morrow. 

Leon. We '11 part the time between 's then; and 
in that 
I'll no gainsaying. 



36 . THE WINTER'S TALE. [act i. 

Pol. Press me not, beseech you, so. 

There is no tongue that moves, none, none i' 

the world, 
So soon as yours, could win me : so it should 

now, 
Were there necessity in your request, although 
'Twere needful I denied it. My affairs 
Do even drag me homeward : which to hinder 
30 Were in your love a whip to me ; my stay 
To you a charge and trouble : to save both, 
Farewell, our brother. 
Leon. Tongue-tied our queen ? speak you. 

Her. I had thought, sir, to have held my 
peace until 
You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. 

You, sir, 
Charge him too coldly. Tell him you are sure 
All in Bohemia 's well ; this satisfaction 
The by-gone day proclaim'd: say this to him, 
He 's beat from his best ward. 
40 Leon. Well said, Hermione. 

Her. To tell, he longs to see his son, were 
strong : 
But let him say so then, and let him go; 
But let him swear so, and he shall not stay, 
We '11 thwack him hence with distaffs. 
Yet of your royal presence [ To Polzxenes] I '11 

adventure 
The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia 
You take my lord, I'll give him my commission 
To let him there a month behind the gest 
Prefix'd for 's parting : yet, good deed, Leontes, 
50 I love thee not a jar o' the clock behind 



sc. II.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 37 

What lady-she her lord. — You '11 stay? 

Pol. No, madam. 

Her. Nay, but you will ? 
Pol. I may not, verily. 

Her. Verily ! 
You put me off with limber vows ; but I, 
Though you would seek to unsphere the stars 

with oaths, 
Should yet say " Sir, no going." Verily, 
You shall not go : a lady's " Verily " is 
As potent as a lord's. Will you go yet ? 60 

Force me to keep you as a prisoner, 
Not like a guest ; so you shall pay your fees 
When you depart, and save your thanks. How 

say you ? 
My prisoner? or my guest? by your dread 

"Verily," 
One of them you shall be. 

Pol. Your guest, then, madam : 

To be your 'prisoner should import offending; 
Which is for me less easy to commit 
Than you to punish. 

Her. Not your jailer, then, 70 

But your kind hostess. Come, I '11 question 

you 
Of my lord's tricks and yours when, you were 

boys : 
You were pretty lordings then? 

Pol. We were, fair queen, 

Two lads that thought there was no more be- 
hind 
But such a day to-morrow as to-day, 
And to be boy eternal. 



38 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act i. 

Her. Was not by lord 

The verier wag o' the two ? 
80 Pol. We were as twinn'd lambs that did frisk 
i' the sun, 
And bleat the one at th' other : what we chang'd 
Was innocence for innocence; we knew not 
The doctrine of ill-doing, no, nor dream'd 
That any did. Had we -pursued that life, 
And our weak spirits ne'er been higher rear'd 
With stronger blood, we should have answer'd 

heaven 
Boldly " Not guilty ;" the imposition clear'd 
Hereditary ours. 

Her. By this we gather 

90 You have tripp'd since. 

Pol. O my most sacred lady ! 

Temptations have since then been born to 's ; 

for 
In those unfledg'd days was my wife a girl ; 
Your precious self had then not cross'd the eyes 
Of my young playfellow. 

Her. Grace to boot ! 

Of this make no conclusion, lest you say 
Your queen and I are devils : yet go on ; 
The offenses we have made you do we '11 answer, 
100 If you first sinn'd with us and that with us 

You did continue fault, and that you slipp'd not 
With any but with us. 

Leon. Is he won yet ? 

Her. He '11 stay, my lord. 

Leon. At my request he would not. 

Hermione, my dear'st, thou never spokest 
To better purpose. 



sc. II.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 39 

Her. Never ? 

Leon. Never, but once. 

Her. What! have I twice said well? when no 
was 't before ? 
I prithee tell me ; cram 's with praise, and make 's 
As fat as tame things : one good deed dying 

tongueless 
Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that. 
Our praises are our wages : you may rides 
With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs ere 
With spur we heat an acre. But to the goal : 
My last good deed was to entreat his stay : 
What was my first ? it has an elder sister, 
Or I mistake you : O, would her name were 

Grace ! 
But once before I spoke to the purpose : when ? 120 
Nay, let me have 't ; I long. 

Leoji. Why, that was when 

Three crabbed months had sour'd themselves to 

death, 
Ere I could make thee open thy white hand 
And clasp thyself my love : then didst thou utter 
" I am yours for ever." 

Her. 'T is grace indeed. 

Why, lo you now, I have spoke to the purpose 

twice : 
The one for ever earn'd a royal husband ; 
The other for some while a friend. 130 

[Giving her hand to Polixenes. 

Leon. [Aside'] Too hot, too hot ! 

To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods. 
I've tremor cordis on me : my heart dances ; 
But not for joy; not joy. This entertainment 



4 o THE WINTER'S TALE. [act i. 

May a free face put on ; derive a liberty 
From heartiness, from bounty, fertile bosom, 
And well become the agent ; 't may, I grant ; 
But to be paddling palms and pinching fingers, 
As now they are, and making practic'd smiles, 
140 As in a looking-glass, and then to sigh, as 't were 
The mort o' the deer; O, that is entertainment 
My bosom likes not/ nor my brows ! Ma- 

millius, 
Art thou my boy ? 

Mam. Ay, my good lord. 

Leon. I' fecks ! 

Why, that 's my bawcock. What, hast smutch'd 

thy nose ? 
They say it is a copy out of mine. Come, cap- 
tain, 
We must be neat ; not neat, but cleanly, cap- 
tain : 
And yet the steer, the heifer, and the calf 
150 Are all call'd neat. — Still virginalling 

Upon his palm ! — How now„ you wanton calf ! 
Art thou my calf? 

Mam. Yes, if you will, my lord. 

Leon. Thou want'st a rough pash and the 
shoots that I have, 
To be full like me : yet they say we are 
Almost as like as eggs ; women say so, 
That will say anything : but were they false 
As o'er-dy'd blacks, as wind, as waters, false 
As dice are to be wish'd by one that fixes 
160 No bourn 'twixt his and mine, yet were it true 
To say this boy were like me. Come, sir page, 
Look on me with your welkin eye : sweet villain ! 



sc. ii.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 41 

Most dear'st ! my collop ! Can thy dam ? — 

may. 't be ? — 
Affection, thy intention stabs the center : 
Thou dost make possible things not so held, 
Communicat'st with dreams ; how can this be ? — 
With what's unreal thou coactive art, 
And fellow'st nothing : then 't is very credent 
Thou mayst co-join with something ; and thou 

dost, 
And that beyond commission, and I find it, 170 

And that to the infection of my brains 
And hardening of my brows. 

Pol. What means Sicilia? 

Her. He something seems unsettled. 

Pol. How, my lord ! 

What cheer ? how is 't with you, best brother ? 

Her. You look 

As if you held a brow of much distraction : 
Are you mov'd, my lord ? 

Leon. No, in good earnest. 180 

How sometimes nature will betray its folly, 
It's tenderness, and make itself a pastime 
To harder bosoms ! Looking on the lines 
Of my boy's face, methought I did recoil 
Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreech'd, 
In my green velvet coat, my dagger muzzled, 
Lest it should bite its master, and so prove, 
As ornaments oft do, too dangerous : 
How like, methought, I then was to this kernel, 
This squash, this gentleman. Mine honesticp 

friend, 
Will you take eggs for money ? 

Mam. No, my lord, I'll fight. 



42 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act i. 

Leon. You will ! why, happy man be 's dole ! 
My brother, 
Are you so fond of your young prince as we 
Do seem to be of ours ? 

Pol. If at home, sir, 

He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter, 
Now my sworn friend, and then mine enemy, 
My parasite, my soldier, statesman, all : 
200 He makes a July's day short as December, 
And with his varying childness cures in me 
Thoughts that would thick my blood. 

Leon. So stands this squire 

Offic'd with me : we two will walk, my lord, 
And leave you to your graver steps. Hermione, 
How thou lovest us, show in our brother's wel- 
come ; 
Let what is dear in Sicily be cheap : 
Next to thyself and my young rover, he 's 
Apparent to my heart. 
210 Her. If you would seek us, 

We are yours i' the garden : shall 's attend you 
there ? 
Leon. To your own bents dispose you : you '11 
be found, 
Be you beneath the sky. [Aside'] I'm angling 

now, 
Though you perceive me not how I give line. 
Go to, go to ! 

How she holds up the neb, the bill to him ! 
And arms her with the boldness of a wife 
To her allowing husband ! 

\Exeunt Polixenes, Herinione, and Atte7idants. 

Gone already ! 



sc. ii.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 43 

Inch-thick, knee-deep, o'er head and ears a fork'd 220 

one ! 
Go, play, boy, play : thy mother plays, and I 
Play too, but so disgrac'd a part, whose issue 
Will hiss me to my grave : contempt and clamor 
Will be my knell. Go, play, boy, play. There 

have been, 
Or I am much deceiv'd, cuckolds ere now. 
Should all despair 

That have revolted wives, the tenth of mankind 
Would hang themselves. Physic for 't there is 

none ; 
It is a " pest'lent" planet, that will strike 
Where 't is predominant ; many thousand on 's 230 
Have the disease, and feel 't not. How now, 
boy ! 
Mam. I am like you, they say. 
Leon. Why, that 's some comfort. 

What, Camillo there? 

Cam. Ay, my good lord. 

Leoii. Go play, Mamillius ; thou 'rt an honest 
man. {Exit Mamillius. 

Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer. 

Cam. You 'd much ado to make his anchor 
hold : 
When you cast out, it still came home. 
Leon. Didst note it ? 240 

Cam. He would not stay at your petitions ; 
made 
His business more material. 

Leo?i. Didst perceive it ? 

[Aside] They 're here with me already, whisper- 
ing, rounding, 



44 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act I. 

" Sicilia is a so-forth :" 't is far gone, 

When I shall gust it last. How came 't, Camillo, 

That he did stay ? 

Cam. At the good queen's entreaty. 

Leo7i. At the queen's be't : "good" should be 
pertinent ; - 
250 But, so it is, it is not. Was this taken 
By any understanding pate but thine ? 
For thy conceit is soaking, will draw in 
More than the common blocks : not noted, is 't, 
But of the finer natures ? by some severals 
Of head-piece extraordinary ? lower messes 
Perchance are to this business purblind ? say. 

Cam. Business, my lord ! I think most under- 
. stand 
Bohemia stays here longer. 

Leon. Ha ! 

260 Cam. Stays here longer. 

Leo7i, Ay, but why ? 

Cam. To satisfy your highness and the en- 
treaties 
Of our most gracious mistress. 

Leon. Satisfy 

The entreaties of your mistress ! satisfy ! 
Let that suffice. I 've trusted thee, Camillo, 
With all the near'st things to my heart, as well 
My chamber-councils ; wherein, priest-like, thou 
Hast cleansed my bosom ; I from thee departed 
270 Thy penitent reform'd ; but we have been 
Deceiv'd in thy integrity, deceiv'd 
In that which seems so. 

Cam. Be 't forbid, my lord ! 

Leoti. To bide upon 't, thou art not honest ; or, 



sc. ii.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 45 

If thou inclin'st that way, thou art a coward, 
Which hoxes honesty behind, restraining 
From course required ; or else thou must be 

counted 
A servant grafted in my serious trust 
And therein negligent ; or else a fool 
That seest a game play'd home, the rich stake 280 

drawn 
And tak'st it all for jest. 

Cam. My gracious lord, 

I may be negligent, foolish, and fearful ; 
In every one of these no man is free, 
But that his negligence, his folly, fear, 
Among the infinite doings of the world, 
Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord, 
If ever I were wilful-negligent, 
It was my folly ; if industriously 
I play'd the fool, it was my negligence, 290 

Not weighing well the end ; if ever fearful 
To do a thing, where I the issue doubted, 
Whereof the execution did cry out 
Against the non-performance, 't was a fear 
Which oft infects the wisest : these, my lord, 
Are such allow'd infirmities that honesty 
Is never free of. But, beseech your grace, 
Be plainer with me ; let me know my trespass 
By its own visage : if I then deny it, 
'T is none of mine. 300 

Leon. Ha' not you seen, Camillo, — 

But that's past doubt, you have, or your eyeglass 
Is thicker than a cuckold's horn, — or heard, — 
For, to a vision so apparent, rumor 
Cannot be mute, — or thought, — for cogitation 



46 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act i. 

Resides, not in that man that does not think, — 

My wife is slippery? If thou wilt confess, 

Or else be impudently negative, 

To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say 
310 My wife's a hobby-horse : say 't and justify 't. 
Cam. I would not be a stander-by to hear 

My sovereign mistress clouded so, without 

My present vengeance taken : 'shrew my heart, 

You never spoke what did become you less 

Than this; which to reiterate were sin 

As deep as that, though true. 

Leon. Is whispering nothing ? 

Is leaning cheek to cheek ? is meeting noses ? 

Kissing with inside lip ? stopping the career 
320 Of laughing with a sigh ? — a note infallible 

Of breaking honesty — horsing foot on foot ? 

Skulking in corners ? wishing clocks more swift ? 

Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes 

Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs 
only, 

That would unseen be wicked ? is this nothing ? 

Why, then the world and all that 's in 't is noth- 
ing; 

The covering sky is nothing ; Bohemia nothing ; 

My wife is nothing ; nor nothing have these noth- 
ings, 
If this be nothing. 
330 Cam. Good my lord, be cured 

Of this diseas'd opinion, and betimes, 
For 't is most dangerous. 

Leon. Say it be, 't is true. 

Cam. No, no, my lord. 

Leon. It is ; yo\i lie, you lie : 



sc. ii.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 47 

I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee, 

Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave, 

Or else a hovering temporizer, that 

Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil 

Inclining to them both. Were my wife's liver 34? 

Infected as her life, she would not live 

The running of one glass. 

Cam. Who does infect her ? 

Leon. Why, he that wears her like her medal 
hanging 
About his neck, Bohemia : who, if I 
Had servants true about me, that bare eyes 
To see alike mine honor as their profits, 
Their own particular thrifts, they would do that 
Which should undo more doing : ay, and thou, 
His cup-bearer, — whom I from meaner form 35') 
Have bench'd and rear'd to worship, who mayst 

see 
Plainly, as heaven sees earth and earth sees 

heaven, 
How I am galled, — mightst bespice a cup 
To give mine enemy a lasting wink ; 
Which draught to me were cordial. 

Cam. Sir, my lord, 

I could do this, and that with no rash potion, 
But with a lingering dram that should not work 
Maliciously like poison ; but I cannot 
Believe this crack to be in my dread mistress, 360 
So sovereignly being honorable. 
I have loved thee, — 

Leon. Make that thy question, and go rot ! 

Dost think I am so muddy, so unsettled, 
T' appoint myself in this vexation, sully, 



48 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act i. 

The purity and whiteness of my ' name,' — 
Which to preserve is sleep, which being spotted 
Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps, — 
Give scandal to the blood o' the prince my son, 
370 Who I do think is mine and love as mine, 

Without ripe moving to 't ? Would I do this ? 
Could man so blench? 

Cam. I must believe you, sir : 

I do ; and will fetch off Bohemia for 't : 
Provided that, when he 's remov'd, your high- 
ness 
Will take again your queen as yours at first, 
Even for your son's sake ; and thereby for seal- 
ing 
The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms 
Known and allied to yours. 
380 Leon. Thou dost advise me 

Even so as I mine own course have set down : 
I '11 give no blemish to her honor, none. 

Cam. My lord, 
Go then ; and, with a countenance as clear 
As friendship wears at feasts, keep with Bohe- 
mia 
And with your queen. I am his cup-bearer 
If from me he have wholesome beverage, 
Account me not your servant. 

Leon. This is all : 

390 Do 't and thou hast the one half of my heart ; 
Do 't not, thou split'st thine own. 

Cam. I'll do't, my lord. 

Leon. I will seem friendly, as thou hast ad- 
vis'd me. [Exit. 

Cam. O miserable lady ! But, for me, 



sc. ii.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 49 

What case stand I in ? I must be the poisoner 
Of good Polixenes ; and my ground to do 't 
Is the obedience to a master, one 
Who in rebellion with himself will have 
All that are his so too. To do this deed, 
Promotion follows. If I could find example 400 
Of thousands that had struck anointed kings 
And flourish'd after, I 'd not do 't ; but since 
Nor brass nor stone nor parchment bears not 

one, 
Let villainy itself forswear 't. I must 
Forsake the court : to do 't, or no, is certain 
To me a break-neck. Happy star reign now ! 
Here comes Bohemia. 

Re-enter POLIXENES. 

Pol. This is strange : methinks 

My favor here begins to warp. Not speak ? 
Good day, Camillo. 410 

Cam. Hail, most royal sir ! 

Pol. What is the news i' the court? 

Cam. None rare, my lord. 

Pol. The king hath on him such a counte- 
nance 
As he had lost some province and a region 
Lov'd as he loves himself : e'en now I met him 
With customary compliment ; when he, 
Wafting his eyes to the contrary and falling 
A lip of much contempt, speeds from me, and 
So leaves me to consider what is breeding 420 

That changeth thus his manners. 

Cam. I dare not know, my lord. 

Pol. How ! dare not ! do not. Do you know, 
and dare not 



50 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act i. 

Be intelligent to me ? 't is thereabouts ; 
For, to yourself, what you do know you must, 
And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo, 
Your chang'd complexions are to me a mirror 
Which shows me mine chang'd too ; for I must 

be 
A party in this alteration, finding 
430 Myself thus alter'd with 't. 

Cam. There is a sickness 

Wihch puts some of us in distemper, but 
I cannot name the disease ; and it is caught 
Of you that yet are well. 

Pol. How ! caught of me ! 

Make me not sighted like the basilisk : 
I 've look'd on thousands, who have sped the 

better 
By my regard, but kill'd none so. Camillo, — 
As you are certainly a gentleman, thereto 
440 Clerk-like, experienc'd, which no less adorns 
Our gentry than our parents' noble names, 
In whose success we 're gentle, — I beseech you, 
If you know aught which does behove my 

knowledge 
Thereof to be inform'd, imprison 't not 
In ignorant concealment. 

Cam. I may not answer. 

Pol. A sickness caught of me, and yet I well ! 
I must be answer'd. Dost thou hear, Camillo, 
I conjure thee, by all the parts of man 
450 Which honor does acknowledge, whereof the 
least 
Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare 
What incidency thou dost guess of harm 



sc. II.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 51 

Is creeping toward me ; how far off, how near ; 
Which way to be prevented, if to be ; 
If not, how best to bear it. 

Cam. Sir, I 'ill tell you ; 

Since I am charg'd in honor and by him 
That I think honorable : therefore mark my 

counsel, 
Which must be even as swiftly follow'd as 
I mean to utter it, or both yourself and me 460 

Cry lost, and so good night ! 

Pol. On, good Camillo. 

Cam. I am appointed him to murder you. 

Pol. By whom, Camillo ? 

Cam. By the king. 

Pol. For what ? 

Cain. He thinks, nay, with all confidence he 
swears, 
As he had seen 't or been an instrument 
To vice you to 't, that you have touch'd his 

queen 
Forbiddenly. 470 

Pol. O, then my best blood turn 

To an infected jelly and my name 
Be yok'd with his that did betray the Best ! 
Turn then my freshest reputation to 
A savor that may strike the dullest nostril 
Where I arrive, and my approach be shunn'd, 
Nay, hated too, worse than the great'st infection 
That e'er was heard or read ! 

Cam. Swear this thought over 

By each particular star in heaven and 480 

By all their influences, you may as well 
Forbid the sea for to obey the moon 



52 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act I. 

As or by oath remove or counsel shake 
The fabric of his folly, whose foundation 
Is pil'd upon his faith, and will continue 
The standing of his body. 

Pol. How should this grow ? 

Cam. I know not :- but I am sure 't is safer to 
Avoid what 's grown than question how 't is 
born. 

490 If therefore you dare trust my honesty, 
That lies inclosed in this trunk which you 
Shall bear along impawn'd, away to-night! 
Your followers I will whisper to the business, 
And will by twos and threes at several posterns 
Clear them o' the city. For myself, I'll put 
My fortunes to your service, which are here 
By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain ; 
For, by the honor of my parents, I 
Have utter'd truth : which if you seek to prove, 

500 I dare,not stand by ; nor shall you be safer 

Than one condemn'd by the king's own mouth, 

thereon 
His execution sworn. 

Pol. I do believe thee : 

I saw his heart in 's face. Give me thy hand: 
Be pilot to me, and thy places shall 
Still neighbor mine. My ships are ready, and 
My people did expect my hence departure 
Two days ago. This jealousy 
Is for a precious creature : as she 's rare, 

510 Must it be great ; and, as his person 's mighty, 
Must it be violent ; and, as he does conceive 
He is dishonor'd by a man which ever 
Profess'd to him, why, his revenges must 



sc. I.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 53 

In that be made more bitter. Fear o'ershades 
me: 

Good expedition be my friend, and comfort 

The gracious queen, part of his theme, but noth- 
ing 

Of his ill-ta'en suspicion ! Come, Camillo ; 

I will respect thee as a father if 

Thou bear'st my life off hence : let us avoid. 

Cam. It is in mine authority to command 520 

The keys of all the. posterns : please your high- 
ness 

To take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away. 

[Exeunt. 



ACT II. 

Scene I. A room i?i Leontes'/#/<2<t<?. 
Enter Hermione, Mamillius, a?id Ladies. 

Her. Take the boy to you : he so troubles me, 
i'T is past enduring. 

First Lady. Come, my gracious lord, 

Shall I be your playfellow ? 

Mam. No, I'll none of you. 

First Lady. Why, my sweet lord ? 

Mam. You'll kiss me hard, and speak to me 
as if 
I were a baby still. — I love you better. 

Sec. Lady. And why so, my lord ? 

Mam. Not for because 10 



54 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act ii. 

Your brows are blacker ; yet black brows, they 

say, 
Become some women best, so that there be not 
Too much hair there, but in a semicircle, 
Or a half-moon made with a pen. 

Sec. Lady. . Who taught you this ? 

Mam. I learnt it out of women's faces. Pray 
now 
What color are your eyebrows ? 

First Lady. Blue, my lord. 

Mam. Nay, that 's a mock : I have seen a lady's 
nose 
20 That has been blue, but not her eyebrows. 

Her. What wisdom stirs amongst you ? Come, 
sir, now 
I am for you again : pray you, sit by us, 
And tell 's a tale. 

Mam. Merry or sad shall 't be ? 

Her. As merry as you will. 
Mam. A sad tale 's best for winter : I have one 
Of sprites and goblins. 

Her. Let 's have that, good sir. 

Come on, sit down : come on, and do your best 
30 To fright me with your sprites ; you 're powerful 
at it. 
Mam. There was a man— 
Her. Nay, come, sit down ; then on. 

Mam. Dwelt by a churchyard : I will tell it 
softly ; 
Yond crickets shall not hear it. 

Her. Come on, then, 

And giv 't me in mine ear. 



sc. i.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 55 

Enter Leontes, with Antigonus, Lords, and 
others. 

Leon. Was he met there ? his train ? Camillo 

with him ? 
First Lord. Behind the tuft of pines I met 
them ; never 
Saw I men scour so on their way : I ey'd them 
Even to their ships. 40 

Leon. How blest am I 

In my just censure, in my true opinion ! 
Alack, for lesser knowledge ! how accurs'd 
In being so blest ! There may be in the cup 
A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart, 
And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge 
Is not infected : but if one present 
Th' abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known 
How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his 

sides, 
With violent hefts. I have drunk, and seen the 50 

spider. 
Camillo was his help in this, his pandar: 
There is a plot against my life, my crown ; 
All 's true that is mistrusted : that false villain 
Whom I employ'd was pre-employ'd by him : 
He has discover'd my design, and I 
Remain a pinch'd thing ; yea, a very trick 
For them to play at will. How came the pos- 
terns 
So easily open ? 

First Lord. By his great authority; 
Which often hath no less prevail'd than so 60 

On your command. 



56 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act ii. 

Leon, I know 't too well. 

Give me the boy : I 'm glad you did not nurse 

him : 
Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you 
Have too much blood in him. 
Her. - What is this ? sport ? 

Leon. Bear the boy hence ; he shall not come 
about her ; 
Away with him ! . . . You, my lords, 
Look on her, mark her well ; be but about 
70 To say, " She is a goodly lady," and 

The justice of your hearts will thereto add, 
" 'Tis pity she 's not honest, honorable." 
Praise her but for this her without-door form, 
Which on my faith deserves high speech, and 

straight 
The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands 
That calumny doth use — O, I am out — 
That mercy does, for calumny will sear 
Virtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha's, 
When you have said, " She 's goodly," come be- 
tween 
80 Ere you can say " She 's honest :" but be 't known, 
From him that has most cause to grieve it should 

be, 
She 's an adultress. 

Her. Should a villain say so, 

The most replenish'd villain in the world, 
He were as much more villain : you, my lord, 
Do but mistake. 

Leon. You have mistook, my lady, 

Polixenes for Leontes : O thou thing ! 
Which I '11 not call a creature of. thy place, 



sci.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 57 

Lest barbarism, making me the precedent, 90 

Should a like language use to ail degrees, 
And mannerly distinguishment leave out 
Betwixt the prince and beggar : I have said 
She 's an adultress ; I have said with whom : 
More, she 's a traitor, and Camillo is 
A federary with her ; one that knows 
.What she should shame to know herself 
But with her most vile principal, that she 's 
A bed-swerver, even as bad as those 
That vulgars give bold'st titles ; ay, and privy 100 
To this their late escape. 

Her. No, by my life, 

Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you, 
When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that 
You thus have publish'd me! Gentle my lord, 
You scarce can right me thoroughly then to say 
You did mistake. 

Leoft. No, no ; if I mistake 

In those foundations which I build upon, 
The center is not big enough to bear no 

A school-boy's top. Away with her ! to prison ! 
He who shall speak for her 's afar off guilty 
But that he speaks. 

Her. There 's some ill planet reigns : 

I must be patient till the heavens look 
With an aspect more favorable. Good my lords, 
I am not prone to weeping, as our sex 
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew 
Perchance shall dry your pities : But I have 
That honorable grief lodg'd here which burns 120 
Worse than tears drown : beseech you all, my 
lords, 



5S THE WINTER'S TALE. [act ft. 

With thoughts so qual'fied as your charities 
Shall best instruct you, measure me ; and so 
The king's will be perform'd ! 
Leon. Shall I be heard ? 

Her. Who is 't that goes with me ? Beseech 
your highness, 
My women may be with me ; for you see 
My plight requires it. ' Do not weep, good 

fools ; 
There is no cause : when you shall know your 
mistress 
130 Has deserv'd prison, then abound in tears 
As I come out : this action I now go on 
Is for my better grace. Adieu, my lord : 
I never wish'd to see you sorry ; now 
I trust I shall. My women, come ; you Ve leave. 
Leon. Go, do our bidding; hence! 

{Exit Queen, guarded ; with Ladies. 
First Lord. Beseech your highness, call the 

queen again. 
Ant. Be certain what you do, sir, lest your 
justice 
Prove violence ; in the which three great ones 

suffer, 
Yourself, your queen, your son. 
140 First Lord. For her, my lord, 

I dare my life lay down, and will do 't, sir, 
Please you t' accept it, that the queen is spot- 
less 
I' the eyes of heaven and to you ; I mean, 
In this which you accuse her. 

Ant. If it prove 

She 's otherwise, I '11 keep my stables where 



sc. I.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 59 

I lodge my wife ; I '11 go in couples with her ; 
Than when I feel and see her no farther trust 

her; 
For every inch of woman in the world, 
Ay, every dram of woman's flesh, is false 150 

If she be. 

Leon. Hold your peaces. 

First Lord. Good my lord, — 

Ant. It is for you we speak, not for ourselves : 
You are abus'd and by some putter-on 
That will be damn'd for 't ; would I knew the 
villain ! 

Leon. Cease ; no more. 

You smell this business with a sense as cold 
As is a dead man's nose : but I do see 't and 

feel 't 
As you feel doing thus ; and see withal 160 

^Grasping his arm. 
The instruments that feel. 

Ant. If it be so, 

We need no grave to bury honesty : 
There's not a grain of it the face to sweeten 
Of the whole dungy earth. 

Leon. What ! lack I credit ? 

First Lord. I'd rather you did lack than I, my 
lord, 
Upon this ground ; and more it would content 

me 
To have her honor true than your suspicion, 
Be blam'd for 't how you might. 170 

Leon. Why, what need we 

Commune with you of this, but rather follow 
Our forceful instigation ? Our prerogative 



60 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act ir 

Calls not your counsels, but our natural good- 
ness 
Imparts this ; which if you, or stupefied 
Or seeming so in skill, cannot or will not 
Relish a truth like us, inform yourselves 
We need no more of your advice : the matter, 
The loss, the gain, the ordering on 't is all 

1 80 Properly ours. 

Ant. And I wish, my liege, 

You 'd only in your silent judgment tried it, 
Without more overture. 

Leon. How could that be? 

Either thou art most ignorant by age, 
Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo's flight, 
Added to their familiarity, — 
Which was as gross as ever touch'd conjecture, 
That lack'd sight only, nought for approbation 

190 But only seeing, all other circumstances 

Made up to the deed, — doth push on this pro- 
ceeding. 
Yet, for a greater confirmation, — 
For in an act of this importance 't were 
Most piteous to be wild, — I have dispatch'd in 

post 
To sacred Delphos, to Apollo's temple, 
Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know 
Of stufFd sufficiency : now from the oracle 
They will bring all ; whose spiritual counsel had 
Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well ? 

200 First Lord. Well done, my lord. 

Leon. Though I am satisfied and need no more 
Than what I know, yet shall the oracle 
Give rest to th' minds of others, such as he 



sc. II.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 61 

Whose ignorant credulity will not 

Come up to th' truth. So have we thought it 

good 
From our free person she should be confin'd, 
Lest that the treach'ry of the two fled hence 
Be left her to perform. Come, follow us; 
We are to speak in public ; for this business 
Will raise us all. 210 

Ant. [Aside] To laughter, as I take it, 
If the good truth were known. [Exeunt. 



Scene II. A prison. 

Enter Paulina, a Gentleman, and Attendants. 

Paul. The keeper of the prison, call to him ; 
Let him have knowledge who I am. [Exit Gent. 

Good lady, 
No court in Europe is too good for thee ; 
What dost thou then in prison ? 

Re-enter Gentleman, with the Jailer. 

Now, good sir, 
You know me, do you not ? 

Jail. For a worthy lady 

And one whom much I honor. 

Paul. Pray you then 10 

Conduct me to the queen. 

Jail. I may not, madam : 

To th' contrary I have express commandment. 

Paul. Here 's ado, 
To lock up honesty and honor from 



62 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act ii. 

Th' access of gentle visitors ! Is 't lawful, pray 

you, 
To see her women ? any of them ? Emilia? 

Jail. So please you, madam, 
To put apart these your attendants, I 
20 Shall bring Emilia- forth. 

Paul. I pray now, call her. 

Withdraw yourselves. 

[Exeunt Ge7itleman and Attendants. 
Jail. And, madam, 

I must be present at your conference. 

Paul. Well, be't so, prithee. {Exit Jailer. 

Here's such ado to make no stain a stain 
As passes coloring. 

[Re-enter Jailer, with Emilia. 
Dear gentlewoman, 
How fares our gracious lady ? 
30 Emit. As well as one so great and so forlorn 
May hold together: oh her frights and griefs, 
Which never tender lady hath borne greater, 
She is something before her time deliver'd. 
Paul. A boy ? 

Emil. A daughter, and a goodly babe, 

Lusty and like to live : the queen receives 
Much comfort in 't ; says, " My poor prisoner, 
I 'm innocent as you." 
Paul. I dare be sworn : 

40 These dangerous unsafe lunes i' the king, be- 
shrew them ! 
He must iDe told on 't, and he shall : the office 
Becomes a woman best ; I'll take 't upon me. 
If I prove honey-mouth'd, let my tongue blister 
And never to my red-look'd anger be 



SC n.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 63 

The trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia, 

Commend my best obedience to the queen : 

If she dares trust me with her little babe, 

I'll show 't the king and undertake to be 

Her advocate to th' loud'st. We do not know 

How he may soften at the sight o' the child : 50- 

The silence often of pure innocence 

Persuades when speaking fails. 

Emil. Most worthy madam, 

Your honor and your goodness is so evident 
That your free undertaking cannot miss 
A thriving issue : there 's no lady living 
So meet for this great errand. Please your 

ladyship 
To visit the next room, I '11 presently 
Acquaint the queen of your most noble offer ; 
Who but to-day hammer'd of this design, 60 

But durst not tempt a minister of honor, 
Lest she should be denied. 

Paul. Tell her, Emilia, 

I '11 use that tongue I have : if wit flow from 't 
As boldness from my bosom, let 't not be doubted 
I shall do good. 

Emil. Now be you blest for it ! 

I '11 to the queen : please you, come something 
nearer. 

Jail. Madam, if 't please the queen to send the 
babe, 
I know not what I shall incur to pass it, jri 

Having no warrant. 

Paul. You need not fear it, sir : 

This child was prisoner to the womb and is, 
By law and process of great nature, thence 



64 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act ii. 

Freed and enfranchis'd, not a party to 
The anger of the king, nor guilty of, 
If any be, the trespass of the queen. 
Jail. I do believe it. 

Paul. Do not you fear: upon mine honor, I 
Bo Will stand 'twixt you and danger. \Exeunt. 



Scene III. A room in Leontes' palace. 

Enter Leontes, Antigonus, Lords, and Ser- 
vants. 

Leon. Nor night nor day no rest : it is but 
weakness 
To bear the matter thus ; mere weakness. If 
The cause were not in being, — part o' the cause, 
She the adultress ; for the harlot king 
Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank 
And level of my brain, plot-proof ; but she 
I can hook to me : — say that she were gone, 
Given to the fire, a moiety of my rest 
Might come to mc again. Who's there ? 
JO First Serv. My lord ? 

Leo7i. How does the boy ? 

First Serv. He took good rest to-night ; 

'T is hop'd his sickness is discharg'd. 

Leon. To see his nobleness ! 
Conceiving the dishonor of his mother, 
He straight declined, drooped, took it deeply, 
Fasten'd and fix'd the shame on 't in himself, 
Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep, 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 65 

And downright languish'd. Leave me solely : 

go, 
See how he fares. {Exit Serv,~] Fie, fie ! no 20 

thought of him : 
The very thought of my revenges that way 
Recoil upon me : in himself too mighty, 
And in his parties, his alliance; let him be 
Until a time may serve : for present vengeance, 
Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes 
Laugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow : 
They should not laugh if I could reach them, nor 
Shall she within my power. 

{Enter Paulina, with a child. 

First Lord. You must not enter. 

Paul. Nay, rather, good my lords, be second 30 
to me : 
Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas, 
Than the queen's life? a gracious innocent soul, 
More free than he is jealous. 

Ant. That's enough. 

Sec. Serv. Madam, he hath not slept to-night ; 
commanded 
None should come at him. 

Paul. Not so hot, good sir 

I come to bring him sleep. 'T is such as you, 
That creep like shadows by him and do sigh 
At each his needless heavings, such as you 40 

Nourish the cause of his awaking : I 
Do come with words as med'cinai as true, 
Honest as either, to purge him of that humor 
That presses him from sleep. 

Leon. What noise there, ho ? 



66 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act ii. 

Paul. No noise, my lord ; but needful con- 
ference 
About some gossips for your highness. 

Leoii, How ! 

Away with that audacious lady! Antigonus, 
50 I charg'd thee that she should not come about 
me : 
I knew she would. 

Ant. I told her so, my lord, 

On your displeasure's peril and on mine, 
She should not visit you. 

Leon. What, canst not rule her? 

Paul. From all dishonesty he can : in this, 
Unless he take the course that you have done, 
Commit me for committing honor, trust it, 
He shall not rule me. 
60 Ant. La you now, you hear : 

When she will take the rein I let her run ; 
But she'll not stumble. 

Paul. Good my liege, I come; 

And, I beseech you, hear me, who profess 
Myself your loyal servant, your physician, 
Your most obedient counselor, yet that dare 
Less appear so in comforting your evils, 
Than such as most seem yours : I say, I come 
From your good queen. 
70 Leon. Good queen ! 

Paul. Good queen, my lord, 

Good queen ; I say good queen ; 
And would by combat make her good, so were I 
A man, the worst about you. 

Leon. Force her hence. 

Paid. Let him that makes but trifles of his eyes 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 67 

First hand me : on mine own accord I'll off ; 
But first I'll do my errand. The good queen, 
For she is good, hath brought you forth a 

daughter ; 
Here 't is ; commends it to your blessing. [Lay- So 
ing d wn the child. 

Leon. Out! 

A mankind witch ! Hence with her, out o' door : 
A most intelligencing bawd ! 

Paul. Not so : 

I am as ignorant in that as you 
In so entitling me, and no less honest 
Than you are mad ; which is enough, I'll war- 
rant, 
As this world goes, to pass for honest. 

Leon. Traitors ! 

Will you not push her out? Give her the 90 

bastard. 
Thou dotard ! thou art woman-tir'd, unroosted 
By thy dame Partlet here. Take up the bastard ; 
Take 't up, I say ; give 't to thy crone. 

Paul. For ever 

Unvenerable be thy hands, if thou 
Tak'st up the princess by that forced baseness 
Which he has put upon 't! 

Leon. He dreads his wife. 

Paul. So I would you did ; then 't were past 
all doubt 
You 'd call your children yours. 100 

Leon. A nest of traitors ! 

Ant. I 'm none, by this good light. 

Paul. Nor I, nor any 

But one that 's here, and that 's himself, for he 



68 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act ii. 

The sacred honor of himself, his queen's, 

His hopeful son's, his babe's, betrays to slander, 

Whose sting is sharper than the sword's ; and 

will not — 
For, as the case now stands, it is a curse 
He cannot be compell'd to 't — once remove 
no The root of his opinion, which is rotten 
As ever oak or stone was sound. 
Leon. A call at 

Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her 

husband 
And now baits me ! This brat is none of mine : 
It is the issue of Polixenes: 
Hence with it, and together with the dam 
Commit them to the fire ! 

Paul. It is yours; 

And, might we lay the old proverb to your 
charge, 
1 20 So like you, 't is the worse. Behold, my lords, 
Although the print be little, the whole matter 
And copy of the father, eye, nose, lip, 
' The trick of 's frown, his forehead, nay, the 
valley, 
The pretty dimples of 's chin and cheek, his 

smiles, 
The very mold and frame of hand, nail, finger : 
And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast 

made it 
So like to him that got it, if thou hast 
The ordering of the mind too, 'mongst all colors 
No yellow in 't, lest she suspect, as he does, 
130 Her children not her husband's ! 

Leon. . A gross hag ! 



SC III.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 69 

And, lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd 
That wilt not stay her tongue. 

Ant. Hang all the husbands 

That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself 
Hardly one subject. 
1 Leo?i. Once more, take her hence. 

Paul. A most unworthy and unnatural lord 
Can do no more. 

Leon. I'll ha' thee burnt. 140 

Paul. I care not . 

It is an heretic that makes the fire, 
Not she which burns in 't. I'll not call you 

tyrant ; 
But this most cruel usage of your queen, 
Not able to produce more accusation 
Than your own weak-hing'd fancy, something 

savors 
Of tyranny, and will ignoble make you, 
Yea, scandalous to the world. 

Leon. On your allegiance, 

Out of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant, 150 
Where were her life? she durst not call me so 
If she did know me one. Away with her ! 
1 Paul. I pray you, do not push me ; I '11 be 

gone. 
Look to your babe, my lord ; 't is yours : Jove 

send her 
A better guiding spirit ! What needs these 

hands? 
You that are thus so tender o'er his follies 
Will never do him good, not one of you. 
So, so : farewell ; we are gone. {Exit. 

Leon. Thou, traitor, hast set on thy wife to this. 



70 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act ii. 

160 My child ? away with 't ! Even thou that hast 
A heart so tender o'er it take it hence 
And see it instantly consum'd with fire: 
Even thou and none but thou. Take it up 

straight : 
Within this hour bring me word 't is done, 
And by good testimony, or I '11 seize thy life, 
With what thou else calFst thine. If thou refuiS 
And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so ; 
The bastard brains with these my proper hands 
Shall I dash out. Go take it to the fire ; 
170 For thou set'st on thy wife. 

Ant. I did not, sir: 

These lords, my noble fellows, if they please, 
Can clear me in 't. 

Lords. We can : my royal liege, 

He is not guilty of her coming hither. 
Leon. You 're liars all. 

First Lord. Beseech your highness, give us 
better credit : 
We 've always truly serv'd you, and beseech 

you 
So to esteem of us, and on our knees we beg, 
180 As recompense of our dear services 

Past and to come, that you do change this pur-^ 

pose, 
Which being so horrible, so bloody, must 
Lead on to some foul issue : we all kneel. 

Leon. I am a feather for each wind that blows : 
Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel 
And call me father ? better burn it now 
Than curse it then. But be it; let it live. 
It shall not neither. You, sir, .come you hither; 



sc. III.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 71 

You that have been so tenderly officious 
With Lady Margery, your midwife there, 190 

To save this' bastard's life, — for 't is a bastard 
So sure as this beard's gray, — what will you ad- 
venture 
To save this brat's life? 

Ant. Any thing, my lord, * 

That my ability may undergo 
And nobleness impose : at least thus much' 
I'll pawn the little blood which I have left 
To save the innocent : any thing possible. 

Leon. It shall be possible. Swear by this 
sword 
Thou wilt perform my bidding. 200 

Ant. I will, my lord. 

Leo7i. Mark and perform it, see'st thou ! for 
the fail 
Of any point in 't shall not only be 
Death to thyself but. to thy lewd-tongued wife, 
Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin 

thee, 
As thou art liege-man to us, that thou carry 
This female bastard hence, and that thou bear it 
To some remote and desert place quite out 
Of our dominions, and that there thou leave it 
Without more mercy, to it own protection 210 

And favor of the climate. As by strange fortune 
It came to us, I do in justice charge thee, 
On thy soul's peril and thy body's torture, 
That thou commend it strangely to some place 
Where chance may nurse or end it. Take it up. 

Ant. I swear to do this, though a present death 
Had been more merciful. Come on, poor babe : 



72 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act ii. 

Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens 
To be thy nurses ! Wolves and bears, they say, 
220 Casting their savageness aside, have done 
Like offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous 
In more than this deed does require ! And bless- 
ing ' - 
Against this cruelty fight, on thy side, 
Poor thing, condemn'd to loss ! 

[Exit with the child. 
Leon. No, I '11 not rear 

Another's issue. 

Enter a Servant. 

Serv. Please your highness, posts 

From those you sent to the oracle are come 
An hour since : Cleomones and Dion, 
2 3° Being well arriv'd from Delphos, are both landed, 
Hasting to the court. 

First Lord. So please 3^ou, sir, their speed 

Hath been beyond account, 

Leon. Twenty-three days 

They have been absent : 't is good speed ; fore- 
tells 
The great Apollo suddenly will have 
The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords ; 
Summon a session, that we may arraign 
Our most disloyal lady ; for, as she hath 
24° Been publicly accus'd, so shall she have 
A just and open trial. While she lives 
My heart will be a burden to me. Leave me, 
And think upon my bidding. [Exeunt. 



sc. I.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 73 

ACT III. 

Scene I. A sea- port in Sic Hi a. 
[ Enter Cleomenes and DlON. 

Cleo. The climate 's delicate, the air most sweet, 
Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing 
The common praise it bears. 

Dion. I shall report, 

For most it caught me, the celestial habits, — 
Methinks I so should term them, — and the rev- 
erence 
Of the grave wearers. O, the sacrifice ! 
How ceremonious, solemn, and unearthly- 
It was i' the offering ! 

Cleo. But of all. the burst 10 

And the ear-deafening voice o' the oracle, 
Kin to Jove's thunder, so surpris'd my sense 
That I was nothing. 

Dion. If th' event of the journey 

Prove as successful to the queen, — O be 't so ! — 
As it hath been to us rare, pleasant, speedy, 
The time is worth the use on 't. 

Cleo. Great Apollo 

Turn all to th' best ! These proclamations, 
So forcing faults upon Hermione, 20 

I little like. 

Dion. The violent carriage of it 
Will clear or end the business : when the oracle, 
Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up, 
Shall the contents discover, something rare 



74 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act hi. 

Even then will rush to knowledge. Go : fresh 

horses ! 
And gracious be the issue ! {Exeunt. 



Scene II. A court of Justice. 
Enter Leontes, Lords, a?id Officers. 

Leon. This sessions, to our great grief we pro- 
nounce, 
Even pushes gainst our heart : the party tried 
The daughter of a king, our wife, and one 
Of us too much belov'd. Let us be clear'd 
Of being tyrannous, since we so openly 
Proceed in justice, which shall have due course, 
Even to the guilt or the purgation. 
Produce the prisoner. 

Off. It is his highness' pleasure that the queen 
io Appear in person here in court. Silence ! 

Enter Hermione, guarded ; Paulina and La- 
dies attending. 

Leon. Read the indictment. 

Off. [Reads] Hermione, queen to the worthy 
Leontes, king of Sicilia, thou art here accused 
and arraigned of high treason, in committing 
adultery with Polixenes, king of Bohemia, and 
conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of 
our sovereign lord the king, thy royal husband : 
the pretense whereof being by circumstances 
tartly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to 



sc. II.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 75 

the faith and allegiance of a true subject, didst 20 
counsel and aid them, for their better safety, to 
fly away by night. 

Her. Since what I am to say must be "but that 
Which contradicts my accusation, and 
The testimony on my part no other 
But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot 

me 
To say, " Not guilty :" mine integrity 
Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it, 
Be so receiv'd. But thus : if powers divine 
Behold our human actions, as they do, 30 

I doubt not then but innocence shall make 
False accusation blush and tyranny 
Tremble at patience. You, my lord, best know, 
Who least will seem to do so, my past life 
Hath been as continent, as chaste, as true, 
As I am now unhappy ; which is more 
Than history can pattern, though devis'd 
And play'd to take spectators. For behold me, 
A fellow of the royal bed, which owe 
A moiety of the throne, a great king's daughter, 40 
The mother to a hopeful prince, here standing 
To prate and talk for life and honor 'fore 
Who please to come and hear. For life, I prize it 
As I weigh grief, which I would spare : for honor, 
'T is a derivative from me to mine, 
And only that I stand for. I appeal 
To your own conscience, sir, before Polixenes 
Came to your court, how I was in your grace, 
How merited to be so ; since he came, 
With what encounter so uncurrent I 50 

Have strain'd to appear thus : if one jot beyond 



76 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act ill. 

The bound of honor, or in act or will 
That way inclining, harden'd be the hearts 
Of all that hear me, and my near'st of kin 
Cry fie upon my grave ! 

Leon. I ne'er heard yet 

That any of these bolder vices wanted 
Less impudence to gainsay what they did 
Than to perform it first. 

60 Her. That's true enough ; 

Though 't is a saying, sir, not due to me. 
Leon. You will not own it. 
Her. More than mistress of 

Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not 
At all acknowledge. For Polixenes, 
With whom I am accused, I do confess 
I lov'd him as in honor he requir'd ; 
With such a kind of love as might become 
A lady like me, with a love even such, 

70 So and no other, as yourself commanded : 

Which not to have done I think had been in me 

Both disobedience and ingratitude 

To you and toward your friend, whose love had 

spoke, 
E'en since it could speak, from an infant, freely 
That it was yours. Now, for conspiracy, 
I know not how it tastes ; though it be dish'd 
For me to try how : all I know of it 
Is, that Camillo was an honest man ; 
And why he left your court, the gods themselves, 

80 Wotting no more than I, are ignorant. 

Leon. You knew of his departure, as you know 
What you have underta'en to do in 's absence. 
Her. Sir, 



sc. II.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 77 

You speak a language that I understand not : 
My life stands in the level of your dreams, 
Which I'll lay down. 

Leon. Your actions are my dreams ; 

You had a bastard by Polixenes, 
And I but dream'd it. As you were past all 

shame, — 
Those of your fact are so — so past all truth : 90 

Which to deny concerns more than avails ; for as 
Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself, 
No father owning it, — which is indeed 
More criminal in thee than it, — so thou 
Shalt feel our justice, in whose easiest passage 
Look for no less than death. 

Her. Sir, spare your threats : 

The bug which you would fright me with I seek. 
To me can life be no commodity : 
The crown and comfort of my life, your favor, 100 
I do give lost ; for I do feel it gone, 
But know not how it went. My second joy 
And first-fruits of my body, from his presence 
I'm barr'd, like one infectious. My third com- 
fort, 
Starr'd most unluckily, is from my breast, 
The innocent milk in it most innocent mouth, 
Hal'd out to murder : myself on every post 
Proclaim'd a strumpet : with immodest hatred 
The child-bed privilege denied, which 'longs 
To women of all fashion ; lastly, hurried no 

Here to this place, i' the open air, before 
I have got strength of limit. Now, my liege, 
Tell me what blessings I have here alive, 
That I should fear to die ? Therefore proceed. 



78 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act hi. 

But yet hear this ; mistake me not ; no life, 
I prize it not a straw, but for mine honor, 
Which I would free, if I shall be condemn'd 
Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else 
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you 

1 20 'T is rigor and not law. Your honors all, 
I do refer me to the oracle : 
Apollo be my judge ! 

First Lord. This your request 

Is altogether just : therefore bring forth, 
And in Apollo's name, his oracle. 

[Exeunt certain Officers. 
Her. The Emperor of Russia was my father : 
O that he were alive, and here beholding 
His daughter's trial! that he did but see 
The flatness of my misery, yet with eyes 

130 Of pity, not revenge! 

Re-e?iter Officers, with Cleomenes and DlON. 

Off. You here shall swear upon this sword of 
justice 
That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have 
Been both at Delphos, and from thence have 

brought 
This seal'd-up oracle, by th' hand deliver'd 
Of great Apollo's priest, and that since then 
You have not dar'd to break the holy seal 
Nor read the secrets in 't. 

Cleo. Dion. All this we swear. 

Leon. Break up the seals and read. 
140 Off. [Reads'] Hermione is chaste; Polixenes 
blameless ; Camillo a true subject ; Leontes a 



sc. il] THE WINTER'S TALE. 79 

jealous tyrant ; his innocent babe truly begot- 
ten ; and the king shall live without an heir, if 
that which is lost be not found. 

Lords. Now blessed be the great Apollo ! 

Her. Praised ! 

Leon. Hast thou read truth ? 
j Off. Ay, my lord ; even so 

As it is here set down. 

Leon. There is no truth at all i' the oracle : 150 

The sessions shall proceed : this is mere false- 
hood. 

Enter Servant. 

Serv. My lord the king, the king ! 

Leon. What is the business ? 

Serv. O sir, I shall be hated to report it ! 
The prince your son, with mere conceit and fear 
Of the queen's speed, is gone. 

Leon. How ! gone ! 

Serv. Is dead. 

Leon. Apollo's angry ; and the heavens them- 
selves 
Do strike at my injustice. [Hermione swoons. 160 
How now there ! 

Paid. This news is mortal to the queen : look 
down 
And see what death is doing. 

Leon. Take her hence : 

Her heart is but o'ercharged ; she will recover : 
I have too much believ'd mine own suspicion: 
Beseech you, tenderly apply to her 
Some remedies for life. 

[Exeunt Paulina and Ladies with Hermione. 



80 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act hi. 

Apollo, pardon 
My great profaneness 'gainst thine oracle ! 

170 I'll reconcile me to Polixenes, 

New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo, 
Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy ; 
For, being transported by my jealousies 
To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose 
Camillo for the minister to poison 
My friend Polixenes : which had been done, 
But that the good mind of Camillo tardied 
My swift command, though I with death and 

with 
Reward did threaten and encourage him, 

180 Not doing 't and being done : he, most humane 
And fill'd with honor, to my kingly guest 
Unclasp'd my practice, quit his fortunes here, 
Which you knew great, and to the certain hazard 
Of all uncertainties himself commended, 
No richer than his honor: how he glisters 
Thorough my rust ! and how his piety 
Does my deeds make the blacker! 

Re-enter Paulina. 

Paul. Woe the while ! 

O, cut my lace, lest my heart, cracking it, 
190 Break too ! 

First Lord. What fit is this, good lady ? 
Paul. What studied torments, tyrant, hast for 
me ? 
What wheels ? racks ? fires ? what flaying ? boil- 
ing? 
In leads or oils ? what old or newer torture 
Must I receive, whose every word deserves 



sc. II.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 81 

To taste of thy most worst ? Thy tyranny 
Together working with thy jealousies, 
Fancies too weak for boys, too green and idle 
For girls of nine, O, think what they have done, 
And then run mad indeed, stark mad ! for all 200 
Thy by-gone fooleries were but spices of it. 
That thou betray'dst Polixenes, 't was nothing ; 
That did but show thee, of a fool, inconstant 
And damnable ungrateful : nor was 't much, 
Thou wouldst have poison'd good Camillo's 

honor, 
To have him kill a king; poor trespasses, 
More monstrous standing by : whereof I reckon 
The casting forth to crows thy baby-daughter 
To be or none or little ; though a devil 
Would have shed water out of fire ere done 't : 210 
Nor is't directly laid to thee, the death 
Of the young prince, whose honorable thoughts, 
Thoughts high for one so tender, cleft the heart 
That could conceive a gross and foolish sire 
Blemish'd his gracious dam : this is not, no, 
Laid to thy answer : but the last, — O lords, 
When I have said, cry, "woe !" — the queen, the 

queen. 
The sweet'st, dear'st creature 's dead, and ven- 
geance for 't 
Not dropp'd down yet. 

First Lord. The higher powers forbid ! 220 

Paul. I say she 's dead ; I '11 swear 't. If word 
nor oath 
Prevail not, go and see: if you can bring 
Tincture or lustre in her lip, her eye, 
Heat outwardly or breath within, I '11 serve you 



82 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act hi. 

As I would do the gods. But, thou tyrant! 
Do not repent these things, for they are heavier 
Than all thy woes can stir : therefore betake 

thee 
To nothing but despair. A thousand knees 
Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting, 
230 Upon a barren mountain, and still winter 
In storm perpetual, could not move the gods 
To look that way thou wert. 

Leo?i. Go on, go on : 

Thou canst not speak too much ; I have deserv'd 
All tongues to talk their bitterest. 

First Lord. Say no more : 

Howe'er the business goes, you have made fault 
I' the boldness of yOur speech. 

Paul. I am sorry for 't : 

240 All faults I make, when I shall come to know 
them, 
I do repent. Alas ! I 've show 'd too much 
The rashness of a woman : he is touch'd 
To the noble heart. What 's gone and what 's 

past help 
Should be past grief : do not receive affliction 
At my petition ; 1 beseech you, rather 
Let me be punish'd, that have minded you 
Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege, 
Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman : 
The love I bore your queen — lo, fool again ! — 
250 I '11 speak of her no more nor of your children ; 
I '11 not remember you of my own lord, 
Who is lost too : take your patience to you, 
And I '11 say nothing. 

Leon. Thou didst speak but well 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 83 

When most the truth ; which I receive much 

better 
Than to be pitied of thee. Prithee, bring me 
To the dead bodies of my queen and son : 
One grave shall be for both : upon them shall 
The causes of their death appear, unto ' 

Our shame perpetual. Once a day I '11 visit 260 
The chapel where they lie, and tears shed there 
Shall be my recreation ; so long as nature 
Will bear up with this exercise, so long 
I daily vow to use it. Come and lead me 
Unto these sorrows. {Exeunt. 



Scene III. Bohemia. A desert country near 
the sea. 

Enter ANTIGONUS with a Child, and a Mariner. 

Ant. Thou art perfect then, our ship hath 
touched upon 
The deserts of Bohemia? 

Mar. Ay, my lord ; and fear 

We 've landed in ill time : the skies look grimly 
And threaten present blusters. In my con- 
science, 
The heavens with that we have in hand are 

angry 
And frown upon 's. 

Ant. Their sacred wills be done ! Go, get 
aboard ; 
Look to thy bark : I '11 not be long before 
I call upon thee. 10 



84 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act in. 

Mar. Make your best haste, and go not 
Too far i' the land : 't is like to be loud weather ; 
Besides, this place is famous for the creatures 
Of prey that keep upon 't. 

Ant. Go thou away : 

I '11 follow instantly. 

Mar. I am gJad at heart 

To be so rid o' the business. [Exit. 

Ant. Come, poor babe : 

20 I've heard, but not believ'd, the spirits o' the 
dead 
May walk again : if such things be, thy mother 
Appear'd to me last night, for ne'er was dream 
So like a waking. To me comes a creature, 
Sometimes her head on one side, some another; 
I never saw a vessel of like sorrow, 
So fill'd, and so becoming in pure white robes, 
Like very sanctity. She did approach 
My cabin where I lay ; thrice bow'd before me, 
And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes 
30 Became two spouts : the fury spent, anon 
Did this break from her: "Good Antigonus, 
Since fate, against thy better disposition, 
Hath made thy person for the thrower-out 
Of my poor babe, according to thine oath, 
Places remote enough are in Bohemia, 
There weep and leave it crying ; and, for the 

babe 
Is counted lost for ever, Perdita, 
I prithee, call 't. For this ungentle business, 
Put on thee by my lord, thou ne'er shalt see 
40 Thy wife Paulina more." And so, with shrieks, 
She melted into air. Affrighted much, 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 85 

I did in time collect myself and thought 

This was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys : 

Yet for this once, yea, superstitiously, 

I will be squared by this. I do believe 

Hermione hath suffer'd death, and that 

Apollo would, this being indeed the issue 

Of King Polixenes, it should be laid, 

Either for life or death, upon the earth 

Of its right father. Blossom, speed thee well ! 50 

There lie, and there thy character: there these; 

Which may, if fortune please, both breed thee, 

pretty, 
And still rest thine. The storm begins : poor 

wretch, 
That for thy mother's fault art thus expos'd 
To loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot, 
But my heart bleeds ; and most accurs'd am I 
To be by oath enjoin'd to this. Farewell ! 
The day frowns more and more : thou 'rt like to 

have 
A lullaby too rough : I never saw 
The heavens so dim by day. A savage clamor ! 60 
Well may I get aboard ! This is the chase : 
I 'm gone forever. \Exit, pursued by a bear. 

Enter a Shepherd. 

Shep. I would there were no age between ten 
and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep 
out the rest ; for there is nothing in the between 
but wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting — 
Hark you now S Would any but these boiled 
brains of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt 



86 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act in. 

this weather? They have scared away two of 
70 my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner 
find than the master: if anywhere I have them, 
't is by the seaside, browsing of ivy. Good luck, 
an 't be thy will ! what have we here? Mercy 
on 's, a barne ; a very pretty barne ! A boy or a 
child, I wonder ? A pretty one ; a very pretty 
one: I '11 take it up for pity: yet I '11 tarry till 
my son come ; he hallooed but even now. 
Whoa, ho, hoa ! 

Enter Clown. 

Clo. Hilloa, loa ! 
80 Shep. What, art so near? If thou 'It see a 
thing to talk on when thou art dead and rotten, 
some hither. What ailest thou, man ? 

Clo. I have seen two such sights, by sea and 
by land ! but I am not to say it is a sea, for it is 
now the sky : betwixt the firmament and it you 
cannot thrust a bodkin's point. 

Shep. Why, boy, how is it? 

Clo. I would you did but see how it chafes, 
how it rages, how it takes up the shore ! but 
90 that 's not to the point. O, the most piteous 
cry of the poor souls! sometimes to see 'em, and 
not to see 'em ; now the ship boring the moon 
with her main-mast, and anon swallowed with 
yest and froth, as you 'd thrust a cork into a 
hogshead. And then for the land-service, to 
see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone ; 
how he cried to me for help, and said his name 
was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make an 
end of the ship, to see how the sea flap-dragoned 



sc. HI.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 87 

it : but, first, how the poor souls roared, and the 100 
sea mocked them ; and how the poor gentleman 
roared and the bear mocked him, both roaring 
louder than the sea or weather. 

Shep. Name of mercy, when was this, boy? 

Clo. Now, now : I have not winked since I 
saw these sights: the men are not yet cold 
under water, nor the bear half dined on the 
gentleman : he 's at it now. 

Shep. Would I had been by to have helped 
the old man ! no 

Clo. I would you had been by the ship side 
to have helped her: there your charity would 
have lacked footing. 

Shep. Heavy matters ! heavy matters ! but 
look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself : thou 
mettest with things dying, I with things new- 
born. Here 's a sight for thee ; look thee, a 
bearing-cloth for a squire's child ! look thee 
here ; take up, take up, boy ; open 't. So, let 's 
see: it was told me I should be rich by the 120 
fairies. This is some changeling : open 't. 
What's within, boy? 

Clo. You 're a made old man : if the sins of 
your youth are forgiven you, you 're well to live. 
Gold ! all gold ! 

Shep. This is fairy gold, boy, and 't will prove 
so: up with 't, keep it close: home, home, the 
next way. We are lucky, boy ; and to be so 
still requires nothing but secrecy. Let my 
sheep go : come, good boy, the next way home. 130 

Clo. Go you the next way with your findings. 
I '11 go see if the bear be gone from the gentle- 



88 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

man, and how much he hath eaten : they are 
never curst but when they are hungry : if there 
be any of him left, I '11 bury it. 

Shep. That 's a good deed. If thou mayest 
discern by that, which is left of him what he is, 
fetch me to the sight of him. 

Clo. Marry, will I ; and you shall help to put 
14° him i' the ground. 

Shep. 'T is a lucky day, boy, and we '11 do 
good deeds on 't. [Exeunt. 



ACT IV. 

Prologue. 
Enter Time, the Chorus. 

Time. I that please some, try all, both joy and 
terror 
Of good and bad, that make and unfold error, 
Now take upon me, in the name of Time, 
To use my wings. Impute it not a crime 
To me or my swift passage, that I slide 
O'er sixteen years and leave the growth untri'd 
Of that wide gap, since it is in my power 
To o'erthrow law, and in one self-born hour 
To plant and o'erwhelm custom. Let me pass 
10 The same I am, ere ancient'st order was 
Or what is now receiv'd : I witness to 
The times that brought them in ; so shall I do 



sc. i.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 89 

To th' freshest things now reigning, and make 

stale 
The glistering of this present, as my tale 
Now seems to it. Your patience this allowing, 
I turn my glass and give my scene such growing 
As you had slept between : Leontes leaving, — 
The effects of his fond jealousies so grieving 
That he shuts up himself, — imagine me, 
Gentle spectators, that I now may be 20 

In fair Bohemia ; and remember well 
I mention'd a son o' the king's, which Florizel 
I now name to you ; and with speed so pace 
To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace 
Equal with wondering: what of her ensues 
I list not prophesy ; but let Time's news 
Be known when 't is brought forth. A shep- 
herd's daughter, 
And what to her adheres, which follows after, 
Is th' argument of Time. Of this allow, 
If ever you have spent time worse ere now; 30 

If never, yet that Time himself doth say 
He wishes earnestly you never may. {Exit. 



Scene I. Bohemia. The palace of Polixenes. 
Enter Polixenes and Camillo. 

Pol. I pray thee, good Camillo, be no more 
importunate : 't is a sickness denying thee any 
thing ; a death to grant this. 

Cam. It is sixteen years since I saw my coun- 
try : though I have for the most part been aired 



go THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, 
the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me ; 
to whose feeling sorrows I might be some allay, 
or I o'erween to think so, which is another spur 

loto my departure. 

Pol. As thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out 
the rest of thy services by leaving me now : the 
need I have of thee thine own goodness hath 
made ; better not to have had thee than thus 
to want thee: thou, having made me businesses 
which none without thee can sufficiently manage, 
must either stay to execute them thyself or take 
away with thee the very services thou hast done ; 
which if I have not enough considered, as too 

20 much I cannot, to be more thankful to thee 
shall be my study, and my profit therein the 
heaping friendships. Of that fatal country, 
Sicilia, prithee speak no more ; whose very nam- 
ing punishes me with the remembrance of that 
penitent, as thou callest him, and reconciled king, 
my brother ; whose loss of his most precious 
queen and children are even now to be afresh 
lamented. Say to me, when sawest thou the 
Prince Florizel, my son ? Kings are no less un- 

30 happy, their issue not being gracious, than they 
are in losing them when they have approved 
their virtues. 

Cam. Sir, it is three days since I saw the 
prince. What his happier affairs may be, are to 
me unknown: but I have missingly noted he is 
of late much retired from court and is less 
frequent to his princely exercises than formerly 
he hath appeared. 



sc. ii.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 91 

Pol. I have considered so much, Camillo, and 
with some care ; so far that I have eyes under 40 
my service which look upon his removedness ; 
from whom I have this intelligence, that he is 
seldom from the house of a most homely shep- 
herd ; a man, they say, that from very nothing, 
and beyond the imagination of his neighbors, 
is grown into an unspeakable estate. 

Cam. I have heard, sir, of such a man, who 
hath a daughter of most rare note : the report 
of her is extended more than can be thought to 
begin from such a cottagi. 50 

Pol. That 's likewise part of my intelligence ; 
but, I fear, the angle that plucks our son thither. 
Thou shalt accompany us to the place ; where 
we will, not appearing what we are, have some 
question with the shepherd ; from whose sim- 
plicity I think it not uneasy to get the cause of 
my son's resort thither. Prithee, be my pres- 
ent partner in this business, and lay aside the 
thoughts of Sicilia. 

Cam. I willingly obey your command. 60 

Pol. My best Camillo ! We must disguise our- 
selves. {Exeunt. 



Scene II. A road near the Shepherd's cottage. 
Enter Autolycus, singing. 

When daffodils begin to peer, 

With heigh! the doxy over the dale, 

Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year ; 
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. 



9 2 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, 

With heigh ! the sweet birds, O, how they sing ! 

Doth set my pugging tooth on edge ; 
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. 

The lark that tirra-lirra chants, 
IO With heigh! with heigh! the thrush and the jay, 

Are summer songs forme and my aunts, 
While we lie tumbling in the hay. 

I have served Prince Florizel and in my time 
wore three-pile ; but now I a oumt of service ; 

But shall I go mourn for that, my dear ? 

The pale moon shines by night : 
And when I wander here and there, 

I then do most go right. 

If tinkers may have leave to live„ 
20 And bear the soW-skin budget, 

Then my account I well may give, 
And in the stocks avouch it. 

My traffic is sheets ; when the kite builds, look 
to lesser linen. My father named me Autoly- 
cus ; who being, as I am, littered under Mer- 
cury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered 
trifles. Gallows and knock are too powerful on 
the highway: beating and hanging are terrors 
to me : for the life to come, I sleep out the 
30 thought of it. — A prize ! a prize ! 

Enter Clown. 
Clo. Let me see : every 'leven wether tods ; 



sc. II.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 93 

every tod yields pound and odd shilling ; fifteen 
hundred shorn, what comes the wool to ? 

Aut. [Aside] If the springe hold, the cock's 
mine. 

Clo. I cannot do 't without counters. Let me 
see ; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing 
feast ? Three pound of sugar, five pound of 
currants, rice,— what will this sister of mine do 
with rice? But my father hath made her mis- 40 
tress of the feast, and she lays it on. She hath 
made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the 
shearers, three-man song-men all, and very good 
ones ; but they are most of them means and 
bases ; but one puritan amongst them, and he 
sings psalms to hornpipes. 1 must have saffron 
to color the warden pies ; mace ; dates ? — none, 
that 's out of my note ; nutmegs, seven ; a race 
or two of ginger, but that I may beg ; four pound 
of prunes, and as many of raisins o' the sun. 50 

Aut. O that ever I was born ! [Groveling on 
the ground.] 

Clo. V the name of me — 

Aut. O, help me, help me ! pluck but off these 
rags ; and then, death, death ! 

Clo. Alack, poor soul ! thou hast need of more 
rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off. 

Aut. O sir, the loathsomeness of them offends 
me more than the stripes I have received, which 
are mighty ones and millions. 

Clo. Alas, poor man! a million of beating 60 
may come to a great matter. 

Aut. I am robbed, sir, and beaten ; my money- 



94 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

and apparel ta'en from me, and these detestable 
things put upon me. 

Clo. What, by a horseman or a footman? 

Aut. A footman, sweet sir, a footman. 

Clo. Indeed, he should be a footman by the 

garments he has. left with thee: if this be a 

horseman's coat, it hath seen very hot service. 

70 Lend me thy hand, I J ll help thee : come, lend 

me thy hand. 

Aut. O, good sir, tenderly, O ! 

Clo. Alas, poor soul ! 

Aut. O, good sir, softly, good sir ! I fear, sir, 
my shoulder-blade is out. 

Clo. How now ! canst stand ? 

Aut. \jPickz7ig his pocket] Softly, dear sir ; 
good sir, softly. You ha' done me a charitable 
office. 
80 Clo. Dost lack any money ? I have a little 
money for thee. 

Aut. No, good, sweet sir ; no, I beseech you, 
sir ; I have a kinsman not past three quarters of 
a mile hence, unto whom I was going; I shall 
there have money or any thing I want : offer 
rne no money, I pray you ; that kills my heart. 

Clo. What manner of fellow was he that robbed 
you ? 

Aut. A fellow, sir, that I have known to go 

90 about with troll-my-dames : I knew him once a 

servant of the prince : I cannot tell, good sir, for 

which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly 

whipped out of the court. 

Clo. His vices, you would say ; there 's no vir- 
tue whipped out of the court :, they cherish it to 



sc. II.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 95 

make it stay there ; and yet it will no more but 
abide. 

Aut. Vices, I would say, sir. I know this 
man well: he hath been since an ape-bearer; 
then a process-server, a bailiff; then he com- 100 
passed a motion of the Prodigal Son, and mar- 
ried a tinker's wife within a mile where my land 
and living lies; and, having flown over many 
knavish professions, he settled only in rogue ; 
some call him Autolycus. 

Clo. Out upon him ! prig, for my life, prig : he 
haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings. 

Aut. Very true, sir ; he, sir, he ; that 's the 
rogue that put me into this apparel. 

Clo. Not a more cowardly rogue in all Bohe- no 
mia : if you had but looked big and spit at him, 
he 'd have run. 

Aut. I must confess to you, sir, I am no 
fighter : I am false of heart that way ; and that 
he knew, I warrant him. 

Clo. How do you now ? 

Aut. Sweet sir, much better than I was ; I can 
stand and walk : I will even take my leave of 
•you, and pace softly towards my kinsman's. 
1 Clo. Shall I bring thee on the way? 120 

Aut. No, good-faced sir; no, sweet sir. 

Clo. Then fare thee well : I must go buy 
spices for our sheep-shearing. 

Aut. Prosper you, sweet sir ! {Exit Clown. ~\ 
Your purse is not hot enough to purchase your 
spice. I '11 be with you at your sheep-shearing 
too : if I make not this cheat bring out another 



96 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

and the shearers prove sheep, let me be unrolled 
and my name put in the book of virtue ! 

130 \Sings\ Jog on, jog on, the foot-path way, 
And merrily hent the stile-a : 
A merry heart goes all the day, 

Your sad tires in a mile-a. \_Exit. 



Scene III. The Shepherd's cottage. 

Enter Florizel and Perdita. 

Flo. These your unusual weeds to each part 
of you 
Do give a life : no shepherdess, but Flora 
Peering in April's front. This your sheep-shear- 
ing 
Is as a meeting of the petty gods, 
And you the queen on 't. 

Per. Sir, my gracious lord, 

To chide at your extremes it not becomes me : 
O, pardon, that I name them ! Your high self, 
The gracious mark o' the land, you have ob- 
scur'd 
IO With a swain's wearing, and me, poor lowly 
maid, 
Most goddess-like prank'd up : but that our 

feasts 
In every mess have folly and the feeders 
Digest it with a custom, I should blush 
To see you so attired, swoon, I think, 
To show myself a glass. 
Flo. I bless the time 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 97 

• 

When my good falcon made her flight across 
Thy father's ground. 

Per. Now Jove afford you cause ! 

To me the difference forges dread ; your great- 20 

ness 
Hath not been us'd to fear. E'en now I tremble 
To think your father, by some accident, 
Should pass this way as you did : O, the Fates ! 
How would he look, to see his work so noble 
Vilely bound up? What would he say? Or 

how 
Should I, in these my borrow'd flaunts, behold 
The sternness of his presence ? 

Flo. Apprehend 

Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves, 
Humbling their deities to love, have taken 30 

The shapes of beasts upon them : Jupiter 
Became a bull and bellow'd ; the green Neptune 
A ram and bleated ; and the fire-rob'd god, 
Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain, 
As I seem now. Their transformations 
Were never for a piece of beauty rarer, 
Nor in a way so chaste, since my desires 
Run not before mine honor, nor my lusts 
Burn hotter than my faith. 

Per. O, but, sir, 40 

Your resolution cannot hold, when 't is 
Oppos'd, as it must be, by th' power o' the king: 
One of these two must be necessities, 
Which then will speak, that you must change 

this purpose 
Or I my life. 

Flo. Thou dearest Perdita, 



9 8 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

With these forc'd thoughts, I prithee, darken 

not 
The mirth o' the feast. Or I '11 be thine, my 

fair, 
Or not my father's. For I cannot be 
50 Mine own nor any "thing to any, if 

I be not thine. To this I am most constant, 
Though destiny say no. Be merry, gentle : 
Strangle such thoughts as these with any thing 
That you behold the while. Your guests are 

coming: 
Lift up your countenance, as 't were the day 
Of celebration of that nuptial which 
We two have sworn shall come. 

Per. O lady Fortune, 

Stand you auspicious ! 
60 Flo. See, your guests approach : 

Address yourself to entertain them sprightly, 
And let' s be red with mirth. 

Enter Shepherd, Clown, Mopsa, Dorcas, and 
others, with POLIXENES «?z^Camillo dis- 
guised. 

Shep. Fie, daughter! when my old wife liv'd, 

upon 
This day she was both pantler, butler, cook, 
Both dame and servant ; welcom'd all, serv'd 

all; 
Would sing her song and dance her turn ; now 

here 
At upper end o' the table, now i' the middle; 
On his shoulder, and his ; her face o' fire 






sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 99 

With labor, and the thing she took to quench it 
She would to each one sip. You are retir'd 70 

As if you were a feasted one and not 
The hostess of the meeting : pray you, bid 
These unknown friends to 's welcome; for it is 
A way to make us better friends, more known. 
Come, quench your blushes and present your- 
self 
That which you are, mistress o' the feast ; come 1 

on, 
And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing, 
As your good flock shall prosper. 

Per. [To Pol.] Sir, welcome : 

It is my father's will I should take on me 80 

The hostess-ship o' the day. [To Cam.] You're 

welcome, sir. 
Give me those flowers there, Dorcas. Rever- 
end sirs, 
For you there 's rosemary and rue ; these keep 
Seeming and savor all the winter long : 
Grace and remembrance be to you both, 
And welcome to our shearing ! 

Pol. Shepherdess,- 

A fair one are you — well you fit our ages 
With flowers of winter. 

Per. Sir, the year growing ancient, — 90 

Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth 
Of trembling winter, — the fairest flowers o' the 

season 
Are our carnations and streak 'd gillyvors, 
Which some call nature's bastards : of that kind 
Our rustic garden 's barren ; and I care not 
To get slips of them. 



ioo THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

Pol. Wherefore, gentle maiden, 

Do you neglect them ? 

Per. For I have heard it said 

ioo There is an art which in their piedness shares 
With great creating nature. 

Pol. Say there be ; 

Yet nature is made better by no mean 
But nature makes thai mean : so o'er that art 
Which you say adds to nature, is an art 
That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we 

marry 
A gentler scion to the wildest stock, 
And make conceive a bark of baser kind 
By bud of nobler race : this is an art 
no Which does mend nature, change it rather; but 
The art itself is nature. 

Per. So it is. 

Pol. Then make your garden rich in gillyvors, 
And do not call them bastards. 

Per. I'll not put 

The dibble in earth to set one slip of them ; 
No more than, were I painted, I would wish 
This youth should say 't were well ; and only 

therefore 
Desire to breed by me. Here 's flowers for you ; 
120 Hot lavender, mints, savory, marjoram ; 
The marigold, that goes to bed wi' th' sun 
And with him rises weeping : these are flowers 
Of middle summer, and I think they 're given 
To men of middle age. You 're very welcome. 

Cam. I should leave grazing, were I of your 
flock, 
And only live hy gazing. 



sc. in. THE WINTER'S TALE. 101 

Per. Out, alas ! 

You'd be so lean that blasts of January- 
Would blow you through and through. — Now, 

my fair'st friend, 
I would I had some flowers o' the spring that 130 

might 
Become your time of day ; and yours and yours, 
That wear upon your virgin branches yet 
Your maidenhoods growing. O Proserpina, 
For th' flowers now that, frighted, thou let'st fall 
From Dis's wagon ! daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
Or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses, 
That die unmarri'd, ere they can behold 140 

Bright Phoebus in his strength — a malady 
Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips and 
The crown imperial ; lilies of all kinds, 
The flower-de-luce being one ! O, these I lack 
To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend, 
To strew him o'er and o'er ! 

Flo. What, like a corse ? 

Per. No, like a bank for love to lie and play on ; 
Not like a corse ; or if, not to be buried, 
But quick and in mine arms. Come, take your 150 

flowers : 
Methinks I play as I have seen them do 
In Whitsun pastorals : sure this robe of mine 
Does change my disposition. , 

Flo. What you do 

Still betters what is done. When you speak, 
sweet, 



102 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

I'd have you do it ever : when you sing, 
I'd have you buy and sell so, so give alms, 
Pray so ; and, for the ordering your affairs, 
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish 
you 
160 A wave o' the sea that you might ever do 
Nothing but that ; move still, still so, 
And own no other function : each your doing, 
So singular in each particular, 
. Crowns what you 're doing in the present deed, 
That all your acts are queens. 

Per. O Doricles, 

Your praises are too large : but that your youth, 
And the true blood which peepeth fairly 

through 't 
Do plainly give you out an unstain'd shepherd, 
170 With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles, 
You woo'd me the false way. 

Flo. I think you have 

As little skill to fear as I have purpose 
To put you to 't. — But come ; our dance, I pray : 
Your hand, my Perdita : so turtles pair, 
That never mean to part. 

Per. I'll swear for 'em. 

Pol. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever 
Ran on the green-sward : nothing she does or 
seems 
180 But smacks of something greater than herself, 
Too noble for this place. 

Cam. He tells her something 

That makes her blood look out : good sooth, 

she is 
The queen of curds and cream. 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 103 

Clo. Come on, strike up ! 

Dor. Mopsa must be your mistress : marry, 
garlic, 
To mend her kissing with ! 

Mop. Now, in good time ! 

Clo. Not a word, a word ; we stand upon our 
manners. — 
Come, strike up ! 190 

{Music. Here a dance of Shepherds and Shep- 
herdesses. 

Pol. Pray, good shepherd, what fair swain is 
this 
Which dances with your daughter ? 

Shep. They call him Doricles ; and boasts 
himself 
To have a worthy feeding : but I have it 
Upon his own report and I believe it ; 
He looks like sooth. He says he loves my 

daughter : 
I think so too ; for never gaz'd the moon 
Upon the water as he '11 stand and read 
As 't were my daughter's eyes : and, to be plain, 
I think there is not half a kiss to choose 200 

Who loves another best. 

Pol. She dances featly. 

Shep. So she does any thing ; though I re- 
port it 
That should be silent : if young Doricles 
Do light upon her, she shall bring him that 
Which he not dreams of. 



104 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv 

Enter Servant. 

Serv. O master, if you did but hear the pedler 
at the door, you would never dance again after 
a tabor and pipe ; no, the bagpipe could not 
210 move you: he sings several tunes faster than 
you '11 tell money ; he utters them as he had 
eaten ballads and all men's ears grew to his 
tunes. 

Clo. He could never come better ; he shall 
come in. I love a ballad but even too well, if it 
be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very 
pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably. 

Serv. He hath songs for man or woman, of 
all sizes ; no milliner can so fit his customers 
220 with gloves : he has the prettiest love-songs for 
maids ; so without bawdry, which is strange ; 
with such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings, 
"jump her and thump her;" and where some 
stretched-mouthed rascal would, as it were, mean 
mischief and break a foul gap into the matter, 
he makes the maid to answer, "Whoop, do me 
no harm, good man ;" puts him off, slights him, 
with " Whoop, do me no harm, good man." 

Pol. This is a brave fellow. 
230 Clo. Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable 
conceited fellow. Has he any unbraided wares ? 

Serv. He hath ribbons of all the colors i' the 
rainbow ; points more than all the lawyers in 
Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they 
come to him by the gross : inkles, caddisses, 
cambrics, lawns : why, he sings 'em over as they 
were gods or goddesses; you would think a 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 105 

smock were a she-angel, he so chants to the 
sleeve-hand and the work about the square on 't. 

Clo. Prithee bring him in ; and let him ap- 240 
proach singing. 

Per. Forewarn him that he use no scurrilous 
words in 's tunes. [Exit Servant. 

Clo. You have of these pedlers, that have more 
in them than you'd think, sister. 

Per. Ay, good brother, or go about to think. 

Enter Autolycus, singing. 

Lawn as white as driven snow ; 

Cyprus black as e'er was crow ; 

Gloves as sweet as damask roses ; 

Masks for faces and for noses ; 250 

Bugle bracelet, necklace amber, 

Perfume for a lady's chamber ; 

Golden quoifs and stomachers, 

For my lads to give their dears 

Pins and poking-sticks of steel, 

What maids lack from head to heel : 

Come buy of me, come ; come buy, come buy ; 

Buy, lads, or else your lasses cry : come buy. 

Clo. If I were not in love with Mopsa, thou 
shouldst take no money of me ; but, being en- 260 
thralled as I am, it will also be the bondage of 
certain ribbons and gloves. 

Mop. I was promised them against the feast ; 
but they come not too late now. 

Dor. He hath promised you more than that, 
or there be liars. 

Mop. He hath paid you all he promised you : 
may be, he has paid you more. 



106 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

Clo. Is there no manners left among maids ? 
270 will they wear their plackets where they should 
bear their faces ? Is there not milking-time, 
when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole, to 
whistle off these secrets, but you must be tittle- 
tattling before all our guests? 't is well they are 
whispering. Clammer your tongues, and not a 
word more. 

Mop. I have done. Come, you promised me a 
tawdry-lace and a pair of sweet gloves. 

Clo. Have I not told thee how I was cozened 
280 by the way and lost all my money ? 

Aut. And indeed, sir, there are cozeners 
abroad ; therefore it behoves men to be wary. 

Clo. Fear not thou, man, thou shalt lose noth- 
ing here. 

Aut. I hope so, sir ; for I have about me 
many parcels of charge. 

Clo. What hast here ? ballads ? 

Mop. Pray now, buy some : I love a ballad in 
print o' life, for then we are sure they are true. 
290 Aut. Here's one to a very doleful tune, how a 
usurer's wife longed to eat adders' heads and 
toads carbonadoed. 

Mop. Is it true, think you? 

Aut. Very true, and but a month old. 

Dor. Bless me from marrying a usurer! 

Mop. Pray you now, buy it. 

Clo. Come on, lay it by : and let 's first see 
more ballads ; we '11 buy the other things anon. 

Aut. Here 's another ballad of a fish, that ap- 
300 peared on the coast on Wednesday the fore- 
score of April, forty thousand fathom above 



sc. III.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 107 

water, and sung this ballad against the hard 
hearts of maids : it was thought she was a 
woman and was turned into a cold fish. The 
ballad is very pitiful and as true. 

Dor. Is it true too, think you ? 

Aut. Five justices' hands at it, and witnesses 
more than my pack will hold. 

Clo. Lay it by too : another. 

Aut. This is a merry ballad, but a very pretty 310 
one. 

Mop. Let 's have some merry ones. 

Aut. Why this is a passing merry one and 
goes to the tune of " Two maids wooing a man :" 
there 's scarce a maid westward but she sings it ; 
't is in request, I can tell you. 

Mop. We can both sing it : if thou 'It bear a 
part, thou shalt hear ; 't is in three parts. 

Dor. We had the tune on 't a month ago. 

Aut. I can bear my part ; you most know 't is 320 
my occupation ; have at it with you. 

Song. 

A. Get you hence, for I must go 
Where it fits not you to know. 
D. Whither? M. O, whither? D. Whither? 
M. It becomes thy oath full well, 
Thou to me thy secrets tell. 
D. Me too, let me go thither. 
M. Or thou goest to the grange or mill. 
D. If to either, thou dost ill. 

A. Neither. D. What, neither? A. Neither. 330 

D. Thou hast sworn my love to be. 
M Thou hast sworn it more to me: 

Then whither goest ? say, whither ? 



108 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

Clo. We '11 have this song out anon by our- 
selves : my father and the gentlemen are in sad 
talk, and we '11 not trouble them. Come, bring 
away thy pack after me. Wenches, I '11 buy for 
you both. Pedler, Jet's have the first choice. 
Follow me, girls. {Exit with Dorcas and Mopsa. 
340 Aut. And you shall pay well for 'em. 

[Follows singmg. 
Will you buy any tape, 
Or lace for your cape, 
My dainty duck, my dear-a? 
Any silk, any thread, 
Any toys for your head, 
Of the new'st and fin'st, fin'st wear-a ? 
Come to the pedler; 
Money 's a medler, 
That doth utter all men's ware-a. [Exit. 

Re-e?iter Servant. 

350 Serv. Master, there is three carters, three 
shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, 
that have made themselves all men of hair, 
they call themselves Saltiers, and they have a 
dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry 
of gambols, because they are not in 't ; but 
they themselves are o' the mind, if it be not too 
rough for some that know little but bowling, it 
will please plentifully. 

Shep. Away! we'll none on 't: here has been 

360 too much homely foolery already. I know, sir, 
we weary you. 

Pol. You weary those that refresh us : pray, 
let 's see these four threes of herdsmen. 



Sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 109 

Serv. One three of them, by their own report, 
sir, hath danced before the king ; and not the 
worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a 
half by the squier. 

Shep. Leave your prating: since these good 
men are pleased, let them come in ; but quickly 
now. 37o 

Serv. Why, they stay at door, sir. [Exit. 

Here a dance of twelve Satyrs. 

Pol. O, father, you '11 know more of that here- 
after. 
[To Cam.] Is it not too far gone ? 'T is time to 

part them. 
He's simple and tells much. [To Flor.~\ How 

now, fair shepherd ! 
Your heart is full of something that does take 
Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was 

young 
And handed love as you do, I was wont 
To load my she with knacks : I would have ran- 

sack'd 
The pedler's silken treasury and have pour'd it 
To her acceptance ; you have let him go 380 

And nothing marted with him. If your lass , 

Interpretation should abuse and call this 
Your lack of love or bounty, you were straited 
For a reply, at least if you make a care 
Of happy holding her. 

Flo. Old sir, I know 

She prizes not such trifles as these are : 



no THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

The gift she looks from me are pack'd and lock'd 
Up in my heart ; which I have given already 
390 But not deliver'd. — O, hear me breathe my life 
Before this ancient sir, who, it should seem, 
Hath sometime loved ! I take thy hand, this 

hand, 
As soft as dove's down and as white as it, 
Or Ethiop's tooth, or the fann'd snow that 's 

bolted 
By th' northern blasts twice o'er. 

Pol. What follows this ? — 

How prettily the young swain seems to wash 
The hand was fair before ! I 've put you out : 
But to your protestation ; let me hear 
400 What you profess. 

Flo. Do, and be witness to 't. 

Pol. And this my neighbor too? 
Flo. And he, and more 

Than he, and men, the earth, the heavens, and 

all: 
That, were I crown'd the most imperial mon- 
arch, 
Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth 
That ever made eye swerve, had force and 

knowledge 
More than was ever man's, I would not prize 

them 
Without her love ; for her employ them all ; 
410 Commend them and condemn them to her ser- 
vice 
Or to their own perdition. 
Pol. Fairly ofler'd. 

Cam. This shows a sound affection. 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. in 

Shep. But, my daughter 

Say you the like to him ? 

Per. I cannot speak 

So well, nothing so well ; no, nor mean better : 
By the pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out 
f The purity of his. 

Shep. Take hands, a bargain ! 420 

And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness 

to 't: 
I give my daughter to him, and will make 
Her portion equal his. 

Flo. O, that must be 

I' the virtue of your daughter : one being dead, 
I shall have more than you can dream of yet ; 
Enough then for your wonder. But, come on, 
Contract us 'fore these witnesses. 

Shep. Come, your hand ; 

And, daughter, yours. 43° 

Pol. Soft, swain, awhile, beseech you ; 

Have you a father ? 

Flo. I have : but what of him ? 

Pol. Knows he of this ? 

Flo. He neither does nor shall. 

Pol. Methinks a father 
Is, at the nuptial of his son, a guest 
That best becomes the table. Pray you once 

more, 
Is not your father grown incapable 
Of reasonable affairs ? is he not stupid 440 

With age and altering rheums ? can he speak ? 

hear ? 
Know man from man ? dispute his own estate ? 
Lies he not bed-rid ? and again does nothing 



ii2 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

But what he did being childish? 

Flo. ' No, good sir ; 

He has his health and ampler strength indeed 
Than most have of his age. 

Pol. By my white beard, 

You offer him, if this be so, a wrong 
450 Something unfilial : reason my son 

Should choose himself a wife, but as good rea- 
son 
The father, all whose joy is nothing else 
But fair posterity, should hold some counsel 
In such a business. 

Flo. I yield all this ; 

But for some other reasons, my grave sir, 
Which 't is not fit you know, I not acquaint 
My father of this business. 

Pol. Let him know 't. 

460 Flo. He shall not. 

Pol. Prithee, let him. 

Flo. No, he must not. 

Shep. Let him, my son : he shall not need to 
grieve 
At knowing of thy choice. 

Flo. Come, come, he must not. 

Mark our contract. 

Pol. Mark your divorce, young sir, 

{Discovering himself. 

Whom son I dare not call ; thou art too base 
To be acknowledg'd : thou a scepter's heir 
470 That thus affect'st a sheep-hook ! — Thou old 
traitor, 
I am sorry that by hanging thee I can 



sc. III.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 113 

But shorten thy life one week. — And thou, fresh 

piece 
Of excellent witchcraft, who of force must know 
The royal fool thou copest with, — 

Shep. O, my heart ! 

Pol. I '11 have thy beauty scratch'd with briers, 
and made 
More homely than thy state. — For thee, fond 

boy, 
If I may ever know thou dost but sigh 
That thou no more shalt see this knack, as never 
I mean thou shalt, we '11 bar thee from succession ; 480 
Not hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin, 
Far than Deucalion off: mark thou my words: 
Follow us to the court. — Thou churl, for this 

time, 
Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee 
From the dead blow of it. — And you, enchant- 
ment, — 
Worthy enough a herdsman ; yea, him too 
That makes himself, but for our honor therein, 
Unworthy thee, — if ever henceforth thou 
These rural latches to his entrance open, 
Or hoop his body more with thy embraces, 490 

I will devise a death as cruel for thee 
As thou art tender to 't. {Exit. 

Per. Even here undone ! 

I was not much afeard ; for once or twice 
I was about to speak, and tell him plainly 
The selfsame sun that shines upon his court , 
Hides not his visage from our cottage, but 
Looks on alike. Will 't please you, sir, be gone ? 
I told you what would come of this : beseech 
you, 



ii4 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

500 Of your own state take care : this dream of 
mine, — 
Being now awake, I '11 queen it no inch farther, 
But milk my ewes and weep. 

Cam. . Why, how now, father ! 

Speak ere thou diest. 

Shep. I cannot speak nor think 

Nor dare to know that which I know. O sir ! 
Yon have undone a man of fourscore-three, 
That thought to fill his grave in quiet, yea, 
To die upon the bed my father died, 
510 To lie close by his honest bones : but now 

Some hangman must put on my shroud and lay 

me 
Where no priest shovels in dust. — O cursed 

wretch, 
That knew'st this was the prince, and wouldst 

adventure 
To mingle faith with him ! Undone ! undone ! 
If I might die within this hour, I 've liv'd 
To die when I desire. {Exit. 

Flo. Why look you so upon me ? 

I am but sorry, not afeard ; delay'd, 
But nothing alter'd : what I was, I am , 
520 More straining on for plucking back, not follow- 
ing 
My leash unwillingly. 

Cam. Gracious my lord, 

You know your father's temper : at this time 
He will allow no speech, which I do guess 
You do not purpose to him ; and as hardly 
Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear : 
Then, till the fury of his highness settle, 



sc. III.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 115 

Come not before him. 

Flo. I not purpose it. 

I think, Camillo ? 530 

Cam. Even he, my lord. 

Per. How often have I told you 't would be 
thus ! 
How often said my dignity would last 
But till 't were known ! 

Flo. It cannot fail but by 

The violation of my faith ; and then 
Let nature crush the sides o' the earth together 
And mar the seeds within ! Lift up thy looks : 
From my succession wipe me, father ; I 
Am heir to my affection. 540 

Cam. Be advis'd. 

Flo. I am, and by my fancy : if my reason 
Will thereto be obedient, I have reason ; 
If not, my senses, better pleas'd with madness, 
Do bid it welcome. 

Cam. This is desperate, sir. 

Flo. So call it : but it does fulfil my vow ; 
I needs must think it honesty. Camillo, 
Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp that may 
Be thereat glean'd, for all the sun sees or 550 

The close earth wombs or the profound seas 

hide 
In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath 
To this my fair belov'd : therefore, I pray you, 
As you have ever been my father's honor'd 

friend, 
When he shall miss me, — as, in faith, I mean 

not 
To see him any more, — cast your good counsels 



n6 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

Upon his passion : let myself and fortune 
Tug for the time to come. This you may know 
And so deliver, I am put to sea 
560 With her whom here I cannot hold on shore; 
And most opportune to our need I have 
A vessel rides fast by, but not prepar'd 
For this design. What course I mean to hold 
Shall nothing benefit your knowledge, nor 
Concern me the reporting. 

Ca.77i. O my lord ! 

I would your spirit were easier for advice, 
Or stronger for your need. 

Flo. ' Hark, Perdita. \_Dr awing her aside. 

570 I' 11 hear you by and by. 

Cam. He 's irremovable, 

Resolv'd for flight. Now were I happy, if 
His going I could frame to serve my turn, 
Save him from danger, do him love and honor, 
Purchase the sight again of dear Sicilia 
And that unhappy king, my master, whom 
I so much thirst to see. 

Flo. Now, good Camillo ; 

I am so fraught with curious business that 
580 I leave out ceremony. 

Cam. Sir, I think 

You 've heard of my poor services, i' the love 
That I have borne your father ? 

Flo. Very nobly 

Have you deserv'd : it is my father's music 
To speak your deeds, not little of his care 
To have them recompens'd as thought on. 

Cam. Well, my lord, 

If you may please to think I love the king 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 117 

And through him what is nearest to him, which 590 

is 
Your gracious self, embrace but my direction : 
If your more ponderous and settled project 
May suffer alteration, on mine honor 
I'll point you where you shall have such receiving 
As shall become your highness ; where you may 
Enjoy your mistress, from the whom, I see, 
There 's no disjunction to be made, but by — 
As heavens forfend ! — your ruin ; marry her, 
And, with my best endeavors in your absence, 
Your discontenting father strive to qualify 600 

And bring him up to liking. 

Flo. How, Camillo, 

May this, almost a miracle, be done ? 
That I may call thee something more than man 
And after that trust to thee. 

Cam. Have you thought on 

A place whereto you '11 go ? 

Flo. Not any yet : 

But as th' unthought-on accident is guilty 
To what we wildly do, so we profess 610 

Ourselves to be the slaves of chance and flies 
Of every wind that blows. 

Cam. Then list to me : 

This follows, if you will not change your purpose 
But undergo this flight, make for Sicilia, 
And there present yourself and your fair princess, 
For so I see she must be, 'fore Leontes : 
She shall be habited as it becomes 
The partner of your bed. Methinks I see 
Leontes opening his free arms and weeping 620 
His welcomes forth ; asks thee, the son, forgive- 
ness, 



n8 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

As 't were i' the father's person ; kisses the hands 
Of your fresh princess ; o'er and o'er divides him 
'Twixt his un kindness and his kindness ; the one 
He chides to hell and bids the other grow- 
Faster than thought or time. 

Flo. Worthy Cam ill o, 

What color for my visitation shall I 
Hold up before him ? 

630 Cam. Sent by the king your father 

To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir, 
The manner of your bearing towards him, with 
What you as from your father shall deliver, 
Things known betwixt us three, I '11 write you 

down : 
The which shall point you forth at every sitting 
What you must say ; that he shall not perceive 
But that you have your father's bosom there 
And speak his very heart. 

Flo. I 'm bound to you : 

640 There is some sap in this. 

Cam. A course more promising 

Than a wild dedication of yourselves 
To unpath'd waters, undream'd shores, most cer- 
tain 
To miseries enough ; no hope to help you, 
But as you shake off one to take another : 
Nothing so certain as your anchors, who 
Do their best office, if they can but stay you 
Where you '11 be loth to be : besides you know 
Prosperity 's the very bond of love, 

650 Whose fresh complexion and whose heart to- 
gether 
Affliction alters. 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 119 

Per. One of these is true : 

I think affliction may subdue the cheek, 
But not take in the mind. 

Cam. - Yea, say you so ? 

There shall not at your father's house these sev- 
en years 
Be born another such. 

Flo. My good Camillo, 

She is as forward of her breeding as 
She is i' the rear our birth. 660 

Cam. I cannot say 't is pity 

She lacks instructions, for she seems a mistress 
To most that teach. 

Per. Your pardon, sir; for this 

I'll blush you thanks. 

Flo. My prettiest Perdita ! 

But O, the thorns we stand upon ! Camillo, 
Preserver of my father, now of me, 
The med'cine of our house, how shall we do ? 
We are not furnish'd like Bohemia's son, 670 

Nor shall appear in Sicilia. 

Cam. My lord, 

Fear none of this : I think you know my fortunes 
Do all lie there : it shall be so my care 
To have you royally appointed 's if 
The scene you play were mine. For instance, sir, 
That you may know you shall not want, one word. 

[ They talk aside. 

Rt-enter Autolycus. 

Aut. Ha, ha! what a fool Honesty is! and 
Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentle- 
man ! I have sold all my trumpery ; not a coun- 680 



120 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

terfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass, pomander, 
brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, 
shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring, to keep my pack 
from fasting : they throng who should buy first, 
as if my trinkets had been hallowed and brought 
a benediction to the buyer: by which means I 
saw whose purse was besr in picture ; and what 
I saw, to my good use I remembered. My clown, 
who wants but something to be a reasonable 
690 man, grew so in love with the wenches' song, 
that he would not stir his pettitoes till he had 
both tune and words ; which so drew the rest of 
the herd to me that all their other senses stuck 
in ears : I could have filed keys off that hung in 
chains : no hearing, no feeling, but my sir's song, 
and admiring the nothing of it. So that in this 
time of lethargy I picked and cut most of their 
festival purses ; and had not the old man come 
in with a whoo-bub against his daughter and the 
700 king's son, and scared my choughs from the 
chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole 
army. 

\Camzllo, Florzzel, and Perdita come forward. 

Cam. Nay, but my letters, by this means being 
there 
So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt. 

Flo. And those that you '11 procure from King 
Leontes — 

Cam. Shall satisfy your father. 

Per. Happy be you ! 

All that you speak shows fair. 

Cam. Who have we here ? 

^ {Seeing Autolycus. 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 121 

We'll make an instrument of this, omit 710 

Nothing may give us aid. 

Aut. If they have overheard me now, why, 
hanging. 

Cam. How now, good fellow ! why shakest 
thou so ? Fear not, man ; here's no harm in- 
tended to thee. 
| Aut. I am a poor fellow, sir. 

Cam. Why, be so still ; here 's nobody will 
steal that from thee : yet for the outside of thy 
poverty we must make an exchange ; therefore 720 
disease thee instantly, — thou must think there 's 
a necessity in 't, — and change garments with this 
gentleman : though the pennyworth on his side 
be the worst, yet hold thee, there 's some boot. 

Aut. I am a poor fellow, sir. [Aside] I know 
ye well enough. 

Cam. Nay, prithee, dispatch : the gentleman 
is half flayed already. 

Aut. Are you in earnest, sir? [Aside*] I smell 
the trick on 't. 730 

Flo. Dispatch, I prithee. 

Aut. Indeed, I have had earnest ; but I can- 
not with conscience take it. 

^)am. Unbuckle, unbuckle. 

[Florizel and Autolycus cha?ige garments. 

Fortunate mistress, — let my prophecy 

Come home to ye !— you must retire yourself 

Into some covert : take your sweetheart's hat 

And pluck it o'er your brows, muffle your face, 

Dismantle you, and, as you can, disliken 

The truth of your own seeming ; that you may — 740 



122 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

For I do fear eyes over — to shipboard 
Get undescri'd. 

Per. \ see the play so lies 

That I must bear a part. 

Cam. No remedy. — 

Have you done there ? 

Flo. Should I now meet my father, 

He would not call me son. 

Cam. Nay, you shall have no hat. 

[Giving it to Perdita. 
750 Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend. 

Aut. Adieu, sir. 

Flo. O Perdita, what have we twain forgot ! 
Pray you, a word. 

Cam. [Aside] What I do next shall be to tell 
the king 
Of this escape and whither they are bound ; 
Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail 
To force him after : in whose company 
I shall review Sicilia, for whose sight 
I have a woman's longing. 
760 Flo. Fortune speed us ! 

Thus we set on, Camillo, to the sea-side. 

Cam. The swifter speed the better. 

[Exeunt Florizel, Perdita, and Camillo. 

Aut. I understand the business, I hear it : to 
have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble 
hand, is necessary for a cut-purse ; a good nose 
is requisite also, to smell out work for the other 
senses. I see this is the time that the unjust 
man doth thrive. What an exchange had this 
been without boot ! What a boot is here with 
770 this exchange ! Sure the gods do this year con- 



sc. hi.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 123 

nive at us, and we may do any thing extempore. 
The prince himself is about a piece of iniquity, 
stealing away from his father with his clog at 
his heels: if I thought it were not a piece of 
honesty to acquaint the king withal, I would 
do 't : I hold it the more knavery to conceal it ; 
and therein am I constant to my profession. 

Re-enter Clown and Shepherd. 

Aside, aside ; here is more matter for a hot 
brain : every lane's end, every shop, church, ses- 
sion, hanging yields a careful man work. 780 

Clo. See, see ; what a man you are now I 
There is no other way but to tell the king she 's 
a changeling and none of your flesh and blood. 

Shep. Nay, but hear me. 

Clo. Nay, but hear me. 

Shep. Go to, then. 

Clo. She being none of your flesh and blood, 
your flesh and blood has not offended the king; 
and so your flesh and blood is not to be pun- 
ished by him. Show those things you found 79° 
about her, those secret things, all but what she 
has with her. This being done, let the law go 
whistle: I warrant you. 

Shep. I will tell the king all, every word, yea, 
and his son's pranks too ; who, I may say, is no 
honest man, neither to his father nor to me, to 
go about to make me the king's brother-in-law. 

Clo. Indeed, brother-in-law was the farthest 
off you could have been to him, and then your 
blood had been the dearer by I know how much 800 
an ounce. 



124 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

Aut. [Aside] Very wisely, puppies ! 

Shep. Well, let us to the king : there is that 
in this fardel will make him scratch his beard. 

Aut. [Aside] I know not what impediment this 
complaint may be to the flight of my master. 

Clo. Pray heartily he be at palace. 

Aut. [Aside] Though I am not naturally hon- 
est, I am so sometimes by chance : let me pocket 
810 up my pedler's excrement. [Takes off his false 
beard?\ How now, rustics ! whither are you 
bound ? 

Shep. To the palace, an it like your worship. 

Aut. Your affairs there, what, with whom, the 
condition of that fardel, the place of your dwell- 
ing, your names, your ages, of what having, 
breeding, and any thing that is fitting to be 
known, discover. 

Clo. We are but plain fellows, sir. 
820 Aut. A lie; you are roughand hairy. Let me 
have no lying : it becomes none but tradesmen, 
and they often give us soldiers the lie : but we 
pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing 
steel ; therefore they do not give us the lie. 

Clo. Your worship had like to have given us 
one, if you had not taken yourself with the 
manner. 

Shep. Are you a courtier, an 't like you, sir ? 

Aut. Whether it like me or no, I am a court- 
830 ier. Seest thou not the air of the court in 
these infoldings? hath not my gait in it the 
measure of the court? receives not thy nose 
court-odor from me ? reflect I not on thy base- 
ness court-contempt ? Thinkest thou, for that 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 125 

I insinuate, or toaze from thee thy business, I 
am therefore no courtier ? I am courtier cap- 
a-pe ; and one that will either push on or pluck 
back thy business there : whereupon I command 
thee to open thy affair. 

Shep. My business, sir, is to the king. 840 

Aut. What advocate hast thou to him ? 

Shep. I know not, an 't like you. 

Clo. Advocate 's the court-word for a pheas- 
ant : say you have none. 

Shep. None, sir ; I have no pheasant, cock 
nor hen. 

Aut. How bless'd are we that are not simple 
men ! 
Yet nature might have made me as these are, 
Therefore I will not disdain. 

Clo. This cannot be but a great courtier. 

Shep. His garments are rich, but he wears 850 
them not handsomely. 

Clo. He seems to be the more noble in being 
fantastical: a great man, I '11 warrant; I know 
by the picking on 's teeth. 

Aut. The fardel there ? what 's i' the fardel ? 
Wherefore that box ? 

Shep. Sir, there lies such secrets in this fardel 
and box, which none must know but the king; 
and which he shall know within this hour, if I 
may come to the speech of him. 860 

Aut. Age, thou hast lost thy labor. 

Shep. Why, sir ? 

Aut. The king is not at the palace ; he is gone 
aboard a new ship to purge melancholy and air 



126 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act iv. 

himself: for, if thou beest capable of things seri- 
ous, thou must know the king is full of grief. 

Shep. So 't is said, sir ; about his son, that 
should have married a shepherd's daughter. 

Aut. If that shepherd be not in hand-fast, let 
870 him fty : the curses he shall have, the tortures 
he shall feel, will break "the back of man, the 
heart of monster. 

Clo. Think you so, sir? 

Aut. Not he alone shall suffer what wit can 
make heavy and vengeance bitter; but those 
that are germane to him, though removed fifty 
times, shall all come under the hangman : which 
though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An 
old sheep-whistling rogue, a ram-tender, to offer 
880 to have his daughter come into grace ! Some 
say he shall be stoned ; but that death is too 
soft for him, say I : draw our throne into a 
sheep-cote ! all deaths are too few, the sharpest 
too easy. 

Clo. Has the old man e'er a son, sir, do you 
hear, an 't like you, sir ? 

Ant. He has a son, who shall be flayed alive ; 
then 'nointed over with honey, set on the head 
of a wasp's nest; then stand till he be three 
890 quarters and a dram dead; then recovered again 
with aqua-vitae or some other hot infusion ; 
then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prog- 
nostication proclaims, shall he be set against a 
brick-wall, the sun looking with a southward 
eye upon him, where he is to behold him with 
flies blown to death. But what talk we of these 
traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 127 

at, their offenses being so capital ? Tell me, for 
you seem to be honest plain men, what you 
have to the king : being something gently con- 900 
sidered, I '11 bring you where he is abroad, ten- 
der your persons to his presence, whisper him 
in your behalfs ; and, if it be in man besides the 
king to effect your suits, here is man shall do it. 

Clo. He seems to be of great authority : close 
with him, give him gold ; and, though authority 
be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose 
with gold : show the inside of your purse to the 
outside of his hand, and no more ado. Remem- 
ber " stoned," and " flayed alive." 910 

Shep. An 't please you, sir, to undertake the 
business for us, here is that gold I have : I '11 
make it as much more and leave this young 
man in pawn till I bring it you. 

Aut. After I have done what I promised ? 

Shep. Ay, sir. 

Aut. Well, give me the moiety. — Are you a 
party in this business? 

Clo. In some sort, sir : but, though my case 
be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out 920 
•of it. 

* Aut. O, that 's the case of the shepherd's son : 
hang him, he '11 be made an example. 

Clo. Comfort, good comfort ! We must to 
the king and show our strange sights : he must 
know 't is none of your daughter nor my sister ; 
we are gone else. Sir, I will give you as much 
as this old man does when the business is per- 
formed, and remain, as he says, your pawn till it 
be brought you. 930 



128 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act v. 

Aut. I will trust you. Walk before toward 
the sea-side; go on the right hand: I will but 
look upon the hedge and follow you. 

Clo. We are blest in this man, as I may say, 
even blest. 

Shep. Let 's before as he bids us : he was pro- 
vided to do us good. 

[Exetmt Shepherd and Clown. 

Aut. If I had a mind to be honest, I see For- 
tune would not suffer me : she drops booties in 
940 my mouth. I am courted now with a double oc- 
casion, gold and a means to do the prince my 
master good ; which who knows how that may 
turn back to my advancement ? I will bring 
these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him : 
if he think it fit to shore them again, and that 
the complaint they have to the king concerns 
him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so 
far officious ; for I am proof against that title and 
what shame else belongs to 't. To him will I 
950 present them : there may be matter in it. 

[Exit. 



ACT V. 

Scene I. A roo?n in Leontes' palace. 

Enter Leontes, Cleomenes, Dion, Paulina, 
and Servants. 

Cleo. Sir, you have done enough, and have 
perform'd 



SC. I.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 129 

A saint-like sorrow : no fault could you make 
Which you have not redeem'd ; indeed, paid 

down 
More penitence than done trespass : at th' last, 
Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil ; 
With them forgive yourself. 

Leon. Whilst I remember 

Her and her virtues, I cannot forget 
My blemishes in them, and so still think of 
The wrong I did myself ; which was so much, 10 
That heirless it hath made my kingdom and 
Destroy'd the sweet'st companion that e'er man 
Bred his hopes out of. 

Paul. True, too true, my lord : 

If, one by one, you wedded all the world, 
Or from the all that are took something good 
To make a perfect woman, she you kill'd 
Would be unparallel'd. 

Leon. I think so. Kill'd ! 

She I kill'd ! I did so : but thou strikest me 20 
Sorely, to say I did ; it is as bitter 
Upon thy tongue as in my thought : now, good 

now, 
Say so but seldom. 

Cleo. Not at all, good lady : 

You might have spok'n a thousand things that 

would 
Have done the time more benefit and grac'd 
Your kindness better. 

Paul. You are one of those 

Would have him wed again. 

Dion. If you would not so, 30 

You pity not the state, nor the remembrance 



130 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act v. 

Of his most sovereign name ; consider little 
What dangers, by his highness' fail of issue, 
May drop upon his kingdom and devour 
Incertain lookers on. What were more holy 
Than to rejoice the former queen is well ? 
What holier than, for royalty's repair, 
For present comfort and for future good, 
To bless the bed of majesty again 

40 With a sweet fellow to 't ? 

Paul. There is none worthy, 

Respecting her that 's gone. Besides, the gods 
Will have fulfill'd their secret purposes ; 
For has not the divine Apollo said, 
Is 't not the tenor of his oracle, 
That King Leontes shall not have an heir 
Till his lost child be found? which that it shall, 
Is all as monstrous to our human reason 
As my Antigonus to break his grave 

50 And come again to me ; who, on my life, 

Did perish with the infant. 'T is your counsel 
My lord should to the heavens be contrary, 
Oppose against their wills. [To Leontes.'] Care 

not for issue ; 
The crown will find an heir : great Alexander 
Left his to the worthiest ; so his successor 
Was like to be the best. 

Leo?i. Good Paulina 

Who hast the mem'ry of Hermione, 
I know, in honor, O, that ever I 

60 Had squar'd me to thy counsel ! then, even now, 
I might have look'd upon my queen's full eyes, 

' Have taken treasure from her lips — 



sc. I.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 131 

Paul. And left them 

More rich for what they yielded. 

Leon. Thou speak'st truth. 

No more such wives ; therefore, no wife : one 

worse, 
And better us'd, would make her sainted spirit 
Again possess her corpse, and on this stage, 
Where we 're offenders now, appear soul-vex'd, 
And begin, " Why to me ?" 70 

Paul. Had she such power, 

She had just cause. 

Leon. She had ; and would incense me 

To murder her I married. 

Paul. I should so. 

Were I the ghost that walk'd, I 'd bid you mark 
Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in 't 
You chose her; then I 'd shriek, that even your 

ears 
Should rift to hear me ; and the words that fol- 

low'd 
Should be, " Remember mine." 80 

Leon. Stars, stars, 

And all eyes else dead coals ! Fear thou no 

wife ; 
I '11 have no wife, Paulina. 

Paul. Will you swear 

Never to marry but by my free leave ? 

Leon. Never, Paulina ; so be blest my spirit ! 

Paul. Then, good my lords, bear witness to 
his oath. 

Cleo. You tempt him over-much. 

Paul. Unless another, 



132 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act v 

90 As like Hermione as is her picture, 
Affront his eye. 

Cleo. Good madam, — 

Paid. I have done. 

Yet, if my lord will marry, — if you will, sir, 
No rem'dy, but you will, — give me the office 
To choose your queen : she shall not be so 

young 
As was your former; but she shall be such 
As, walk'd your first queen's ghost, it should 

take joy 
To see her in your arms. 
100 Leon. My true Paulina, 

We shall not marry till thou bid'st us. 

Paul. That 

Shall be when your first queen 's again in breath; 
Never till then. 

Enter a Gentleman. 

Gent. One that gives out himself Prince Flori- 
zel, 
Son of Polixenes, with his princess, 
The fair'st I 've yet beheld, desires access 
To your high presence. 

Leon. What with him? he comes not 

j IO Like to his father's greatness : his approach, 
So out of circumstance and sudden, tells us 
'Tis not a visitation fram'd, but forc'd 
By need and accident. What train ? 

Gent. But few, 

And those but mean. 

Leon. % His princess, say you, with him ? 



sc. i.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 133 

Gent. Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I 
think, 
That e'er the sun shone bright on. 

Paul. O Hermione, 

As every present time doth boast itself 120 

Above a better gone, so must thy grave 
Give way to what 's seen now ! Sir, you yourself 
Have said and writ so, but your writing now 
Is colder than that theme, " She had not been, 
Nor was not to be equal'd ;" — thus your verse 
Flow'd with her beauty once ; 't is shrewdly 

ebb'd, 
To say you 've seen a better. 

Gent. Pardon, madam : 

The one I have almost forgot, — your pardon, — 
The other, when she has obtain 'd your eye, 130 

Will have your tongue too. This is a creature, 
Would she begin a sect, might quench the 

zeal 
Of all professors else, make proselytes 
Of who she but bid follow. 

Paul. How ! not women ? 

Gent. Women will love her,that she is a wom- 
an 
More worth than any man ; men, that she is 
The rarest of all women. 

Leon. Go, Cleomenes ; 

Yourself, assisted with your honor'd friends, 140 
Bring them to our embracement. Still, 't is 
strange {Exeunt Cleomenes and others. 

He thus should steal upon us. 

Paul. Had our prince, 

Jewel of children, seen this hour, he 'd pair'd 



134 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act v. 

Well with this lord : there was not full a month 
Between their births. 

Leon. Prithee, no more ; thou know'st 
He dies to me again when talk'd of: sure, 
When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches 
150 Will bring me to consider that which may 
Unfurnish me of reason. They are come. 

Re-e?iter Cleomenes and others, with Flori- 
zel and Perdita. 

Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince ; 
For she did print your royal father off, 
Conceiving you : were I but twenty-one, 
Your father's image is so hit in you, 
His very air, that I should call you brother 
As I did him, and speak of something wildly 
By us perform'd before. Most dearly welcome ! 
And your fair princess, — goddess ! — O, alas ! 

160 I lost a couple, that 'twixt heaven and earth 
Might thus have stood begetting wonder as 
You, gracious couple, do : and then I lost — 
All mine own folly — the society, 
Amity too, of your brave father, whom, 
Though bearing misery, I desire my life 
Once more to look on him. 

Flo. By his command 

Have I here touch'd Sicilia and from him 
Give you all greetings that a king, at friend, 

170 Can send his brother: and, but infirmity 

Which waits upon worn times hath something 

seized 
His wish 'd ability, he had himself 



sci.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 135 

The lands and waters 'twixt your throne and his 
Measur'd to look upon you ; whom he loves — 
He bade me say so — more than all the scepters 
And those that bear them living. 

Leon. O my brother, 

Good gentleman ! the wrongs I 've done thee stir 
Afresh within me, and these thy offices, 
So rarely kind, are as interpreters 180 

Of my behind-hand slackness. Welcome hither, 
As is the spring to the earth. And hath he too 
Expos'd this paragon to th' fearful usage, 
At least ungentle, of the dreadful Neptune, 
To greet a man not worth her pains, much less 
Th' adventure of her person ? 

Flo. Good my lord, 

She came from Libya. 

Leon. Where the warlike Smalus, 

That noble honor'd lord, is fear'd and lov'd ? 190 

Flo. Most royal sir, from thence ; from him, 
whose daughter 
His tears proclaim'd his, parting with her: 

thence, 
A prosp'rous south-wind friendly, we have 

cross'd 
To execute the charge my father gave me 
For visiting your highness : my best train 
I have from your Sicilian shores dismiss'd ; 
Who for Bohemia bend, to signify 
Not only my success in Libya, sir, 
But my arrival and my wife's in safety 
Here where we are. 200 

Leon. The blessed gods 

Purge all infection from our air whilst you 



136 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act v. 

Do climate here ! You have a holy father, 
A graceful gentleman ; against whose person, 
So sacred as it is, I have done sin : 
For which the heavens, taking angry note, 
Have left me issueless ; and your father 's blest, 
As he from heaven merits it, with you 
Worthy his goodness. What might I have been, 
210 Might I a son and daughter now have look'd on, 
Such goodly things as you ! 

Enter a Lord. 

Lord. Most noble sir, 

That which I shall report will bear no credit, 
Were not the proof so nigh. Please you, great 

sir, 
Bohemia greets you from himself by me ; 
Desires you to attach his son, who has — 
His dignity and duty both cast off — 
Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with 
A shepheid's daughter. 
220 Leo7i. Where's Bohemia"? speak. 

Lord. Here in your city ; I now came from 
him : 
I speak amazedly ; and it becomes 
My marvel and my message. To your court 
Whiles he was hastening, in the chase, it seems, 
Of this fair couple, meets he on the way 
The father of this seeming lady and 
Her brother, having both their country quitted 
With this young prince. 

Flo. Camillo has betray'd me ; 

230 Whose honor and whose honesty till now 
Endur 'd all weathers. 



sc. i.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 137 

Lord. Lay 't so to his charge : 

He 's with the king your father. 

Leon. Who? Camillo? 

Lord. Camillo, sir; I spake with him; who 
now 
Has these poor men in question. Never saw I 
Wretches so quake : they kneel, they kiss the 

earth ; 
Forswear themselves as often as they speak: 
Bohemia stops his ears, and threatens them 
With divers deaths in death. 240 

Per. O my poor father ! 

The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have 
Our contract celebrated. 

Leon. You are married ? 

Flo. We are not, sir, nor are we like to be ; 
The stars, I see, will kiss the valleys first : 
The odds for high and low 's alike. 

Leon. My lord, 

Is this the daughter of a king? 

Flo. She is, 250 

When once she is my wife. 

Leo)i. That " once," I see by your good father's 
speed, 
Will come on very slowly. I am sorry, 
Most sorry, you have broken from his liking 
Where you were tied in duty, and as sorry 
Your choice is not so rich in worth as beauty, 
That you might well enjoy her. 

Flo. Dear, look up : 

Though Fortune, visible an enemy, 
Should chase us w T ith my father, power no jot 260 
Hath she to change our loves. — Beseech you, sir, 



138 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act v. 

Remember since you owed no more to time 
Than I do now : with thought of such affections, 
Step forth mine advocate ; at your request 
My father will grant precious things as trifles. 
Leon. Would he do so, I 'd beg your precious 
mistress, 
Which he counts but a. trifle. 

Paul. Sir, my liege, 

Your eye hath too much youth in 't : not a month 
270 'Fore your queen died, she was more worth such 
gazes 
Than what you look on now. 

Leon. I thought of her, 

Even in these looks I made. [To Elorzzel.~\ But 

your petition 
Is yet unanswer'd. I will to your father : 
Your honor not o'erthrown by your desires, 
I 'm friend to them and you : upon which errand 
I now go toward him ; therefore follow me 
And mark what way I make : come, good my 
lord. [Exeunt. 



SCENE II. Before Leontes' palace. 
Enter Autolycus and a Gentleman. 

Aut. Beseech you, sir, were you present at 
this relation ? 

First Gent. I was by at the opening of the 
fardel, heard the old shepherd deliver the man- 
ner how he found it : whereupon, after a little 
amazedness, we were all commanded out of the 



sc. II.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 139 

chamber; only this methought I heard the shep- 
herd say, he found the child. 

Aut. I would most gladly know the issue of it. 

First Gent. I make a broken delivery of the 10 
business ; but the changes I perceived in the 
king and Camillo were very notes of admiration : 
they seemed almost, with staring on one another, 
to tear the cases of their eyes ; there was speech 
in their dumbness, language in their very ges- 
ture ; they looked as they had heard of a world 
ransomed, or one destroyed : a notable passion 
of wonder appeared in them ; but the wisest be- 
holder, that knew no more but seeing, could 
not say if the importance were joy or sorrow; 20 
but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be. 

Enter another Gentleman. 

Here comes a gentleman that haply knows 

more. 

The news, Rogero ? 

Sec. Gent. Nothing but bonfires : the oracle is 
fulfilled ; the king's daughter is found : such a 
deal of wonder is broken out within this hour 
that ballad-makers cannot be able to express it. 

Enter a third Gentleman. 

Here comes the Lady Paulina's steward : he can 
deliver you more. How goes it now, sir? this 30 
news which is called true is so like an old tale 
that the verity of it is in strong suspicion : has 
the king found his heir? 

Third Gent. Most true, if ever truth were 



140 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act v. 

pregnant by circumstance : that which you hear 
you '11 swear you see, there is such unity in the 
proofs. The mantle of Queen Hermione's, her 
jewel about the neck of it, the letters of Antig- 
onus found with it" which they know to be his 

40 character, the majesty of the creature in resem- 
blance of the mother, the affection of nobleness 
which nature shows above her breeding, and 
many other evidences proclaim her with all cer- 
tainty to be the king's daughter. Did you see 
the meeting of the two kings ? 
Sec . Gent. No. 

Third Gent. Then have you lost a sight, which 
was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There 
might you have beheld one joy crown another, 

50 so and in such manner that it seemed sorrow 
wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded 
in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding 
up of hands, with countenances of such distrac- 
tion that they were to be known by garment, 
not by favor. Our king, being ready to leap out 
of himself for joy of his found daughter, as if 
that joy were now become a loss, cries, " O, thy 
mother, thy mother !" then asks Bohemia for- 
giveness ; then embraces his son-in-law ; then 

60 again worries he his daughter with clipping her; 
now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands 
by like a weather- bitten conduit of many kings' 
reigns. I never heard of such another encoun- 
ter, which lames report to follow it and undoes 
description to do it. 

Sec. Gent. What, pray you, became of Anti- 
gonus, that carried hence the child ? 



sc. ii.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 141 

Third Gent. Like an old tale still, which will 
have matter to rehearse, though credit be asleep 
and not an ear open. He was torn to pieces 70 
with a bear : this avouches the shepherd's son ; 
who has not only his innocence, which seems 
much, to justify him, but a handkerchief and 
rings of his that Paulina knows. 

First Gent. What became of his bark and his 
followers ? 

Third Gent. Wrecked the same instant of 
their master's death and in the view of the shep- 
herd : so that all the instruments which aided 
to expose the child were even then lost when it 80 
was found. But O, the noble combat that 'twixt 
joy and sorrow was fought in Paulina ! She had 
one eye declined for the loss of her husband, 
another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled: 
she lifted the princess from the earth, and so 
locks her in embracing as if she would pin her 
to her heart that she might no more be in dan- 
ger of losing. 

First Gent. The dignity of this act was worth 
the audience of kings and princes; for by such 90 
was it acted. 

Third Gent. One of the prettiest touches of 
all and that which angled for mine eyes, caught 
the water though not the fish, was when, at the 
relation of the queen's death, with the manner 
how she came to 't bravely confessed and la- 
mented by the king, how attentiveness wounded 
his daughter ; till, from one sign of dolor to 
another, she did, with an " Alas," I would fain 
say, bleed tears, for I am sure my heart wept 100 



142 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act v. 

blood. Who was most marble there changed 
color ; some swooned, all sorrowed : if all the 
world could have seen 't, the woe had been uni- 
versal, i 

First Gent. Arethey returned to the court? 

Third Gent. No : the princess hearing of her 

mother's statue, which is in the keeping of 

Paulina, — a piece many years in doing and now 

newly performed by that rare Italian master, 

no Julio Romano, who, had he himself eternity and 
could put breath into his work, would beguile 
Nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape : 
he so near to Hermione hath done Hermione 
that they say one would speak to her and stand 
in hope of answer : thither with all greediness 
of affection are they gone, and there they intend 
to sup. 

Sec. Gent. I thought she had some great mat- 
ter there in hand ; for she hath privately twice 

1 20 or thrice a day, ever since the death of Hermione, 
visited that removed house. Shall we thither 
and with our company piece the rejoicing? 

First Gent. Who would be thence that has the 
benefit of access ? every wink of an eye some 
new grace would be born : our absence makes us 
unthrifty to our knowledge, Let 's along. 

\Exeunt Gentlemen. 

Ant. Now, had I not the dash of my former 

life in me, would preferment drop on my head. 

I brought the old man and his son aboard the 

130 prince; told him I heard them talk of a fardel 
and I know not what : but he at that time, over- 
fond of the shepherd's daughter, so he then 



*■«*!> . 



sc. ii.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 143 

took her to be, who began to be much sea-sick, 
and himself little better, extremity of weather 
continuing, this mystery remained undiscovered. 
But 't is all one to me ; for had I been the finder 
out of this secret, it would not have relished 
among my other discredits. 

Enter Shepherd and Clown. 

Here come those I have done good to against 
my will, and already appearing in the blossoms 14a 
of their fortune. 

Shep. Come, boy ; I am past more children, 
but thy sons and daughters will be all gentlemen 
born. 

Clo. You are well met, sir. You denied to 
fight with me this other day, because I was no 
gentleman born. See you these clothes ? say 
you see them not and think me still no gentle- 
man born : you were best say these robes are not 
gentlemen born : give me the lie, do, and try 150 
whether I am not now a gentleman born. 

Aut. I know you are now, sir, a gentleman 
born. 

Clo. Ay, and have been so any time these four 
hours. 

Shep. And so have I. boy. 

Clo. So you have : but I was a gentleman born 
before my father ; for the king's son took me by 
the hand, and called me brother; and then the 
two kings called my father brother; and then 160 
the prince my brother and the princess my sister 
called my father father; and so we wept, and 



144 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act v. 

there was the first gentleman-like tears that ever 
we shed. 

Shep. We may live, son, to shed many more. 

Clo. Ay; or else 't were hard luck, being in so 
preposterous estate as we are. 

Aut. I humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me 
all the faults I have committed to your worship 
170 and to give me your good report to the prince 
my master. 

Shep. Prithee, son, do ; for we must be gentle, 
now we are gentlemen. 

Clo. Thou wilt amend thy life ? , - 

Aut. Ay, an it like your good worship. 

Clo. Give me thy hand : I will swear to the 
prince thou art as honest a true fellow as any is 
in Bohemia. 

Shep. You may say it, but not swear it. 
180 Clo. Not swear it, now I am a gentleman ? 
Let boors and franklins say it, I '11 swear it. 

Shep. How if it be false, son ? 

Clo. If it be ne'er so false, a true gentleman 
may swear it in the behalf of his friend : and I '11 
swear to the prince thou art a tall fellow of thy 
hands and that thou wilt not be drunk ; but I 
know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands and 
that thou wilt be drunk : but I '11 swear it, and I 
would thou wouldst be a tall fellow of thy 
190 hands. 

Aut. I will prove so, sir, to my power. 

Clo. Ay, by any means prove a tall fellow : if 
I do not wonder how thou darest venture to be 
drunk, not being a tall fellow, trust me not. 
Hark ! the kings and the princes, our kindred 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 145 

are going to see the queen's picture. Come, 
follow us : we '11 be thy good masters. [Exeunt. 



Scene III, A chapel in Paulina's house. 

Enter LEONTES, POLIXENES, FLORIZEL, Per- 
dita, Camillo, Paulina, Lords, and At- 
tendants. 

Leon. O grave and good Paulina, the great 
comfort 
That I have had of thee ! 

Paul. What, sovereign sir, 

I did not well I meant well. All my services 
You have paid home : but that you have vouch- 
safe 
With your crown'd brother and these your con- 
tracted 
Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit, 
It is a surplus of your grace, which never 
My life may last to answer. 

Leon. O Paulina, 10 

We honor you with trouble : but we came 
To see the statue of our queen : your gallery 
Have we pass'd through, not without much con- 
tent 
In many singularities ; but we saw not 
That which my daughter came to look upon, 
The statue of her mother. 

Paul. As she lived peerless, 

So her dead likeness, I do well believe, 
Excels whatever yet you look'd upon 



146 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act v. 

20 Or hand of man hath done ; therefore I keep it 
Lonely, apart. But here it is : prepare 
To see the life as lively mock'd as ever 
Still sleep mock'd. death : behold, and say 't is 
well. 

[Paulina draws a curtain, and discovers 
Hermione standing like a statue. 

I like your silence, it the more shows off 

Your wonder : but yet speak ; first, you, my liege. 

Comes it not something near ? 

Leon. Her natural posture ! — 

Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed 
Thou art Hermione ; or rather, thou art she 
30 In thy not chiding, for she was as tender 
As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina, 
Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing 
So aged as this seems. 

Pol. O, not by much. 

Paul. So much the more our carver's excel- 
lence ; 
Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes 

her 
As she lived now. 

Leo?i. As now she might have done, 

So much to my good comfort, as it is 
40 Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood, 
Even with such life of majesty, warm life, 
As now it coldly stands, when first I woo'd her ! 
I am asham'd : does not the stone rebuke me 
For being more stone than it ? O royal piece 
There 's magic in thy majesty, which has 
My evils conjur'd to remembrance and 



SC. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 147 

From thy admiring daughter took the spirits, 
Standing like stone with thee. 

Per. And give me leave, 

And do not say 't is superstition, that 50 

I kneel and then implore her blessing. Lady, 
Dear queen, that ended when I but began, 
Give me that hand of yours to kiss. 

Paul. O, patience ! 

The statue is but newly fix'd, the color 's 
Not dry. 

Cam. My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on, 
Which sixteen winters cannot blow away, 
So many summers dry : scarce any joy 
Did ever so long live ; no sorrow 60 

But kill'd itself much sooner. 

Pol. Dear my brother, 

Let him that was the cause of this have power 
To take off so much grief from you as he 
Will piece up in himself. 

Paul. Indeed, my lord, 

If I had thought the sight of my poor image 
Would thus have wrought you, — for the stone is 

mine — 
I 'd not have show'd it. 
Leon. Do not draw the curtain. 70 

Patd. No longer shall you gaze on 't, lest your 
fancy 
May think anon it moves. 

Leon. Let be, let be. 

Would I were dead, but that, methinks, already — 
What was he that did make it ? See, my lord, 
Wo^ld you not deem it breathed ? and that tlx^e 
Yeins 



148 THE WINTER' S TALE. [act v. 

Did verily bear blood ? 

Pol. Masterly done : 

The very life seems warm upon her lip. 
80 Leon. The fixture of her eye has motion in 't, 
As we are mock"d with art. 

Paul. - I'll draw the curtain : 

My lord 's almost so far transported that 
He '11 think anon it lives. 

Leon. O sweet Paulina, 

Make me to think so twenty years together 1 
No settled senses of the world can match 
The pleasure of that madness. Let 't alone. 

Paul. I 'm sorry, sir, I 've thus far stirr'd you : 
but 
90 I could afflict you farther. 

Leon. Do, Paulina ; 

For this affliction has ataste as sweet 
As any cordial comfort. Still, methinks, 
There is an air comes from her : what fine chisel 
Could ever yet cut breath ? Let no man mock 

me, 
For I will kiss her. 

Paul. Good my lord, forbear : 

The ruddiness upon her lip is wet ; 
You '11 mar it if you kiss it, stain your own 
100 With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain ? 

Leon. No, not these twenty years. 

Per. So long could I 

Stand by, a looker-on. 

Paul. Either forbear, 

Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you 
For more amazement. If you can behold it, 
I '11 make the statue move indeed, descend 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 149 

And take you by the hand : but then you '11 

think — 
Which I protest against — I am assisted 
By wicked powers. no 

Leon. What you can make her do 

I am content to look on : what to speak 
I am content to hear ; for 't is as easy 
To make her speak as move. 

Paul. It is required 

Yon do awake your faith. Then all stand still ; 
Or those that think it is unlawful business 
I am about, let them depart. 

Leon. Proceed : 

No foot shall stir. 120 

Paul. Music, awake her ; strike ! {Music. 
'T is time ; descend ; be stone no more ; approach ; 
Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come, 
. '11 fill your grave up : stir, nay, come away, 
Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him 
Dear life redeems you. — You perceive she stirs : 

[Hei'mione comes down. 
Start not ; her actions shall be holy as 
You hear my spell is lawful : do not shun her 
/Until you see her die again ; for then 
You kill her double. Nay, present your hand : 130 
When she was young you woo'd her ; now in age 
Is she become the suitor ? 

■Leon. O, she 's warm ! 

If this be magic, let it be an art 
Lawful as eating. 

Pol. She embraces him. 

Cam. She hangs about his neck : 
Tf she pertain to life let her speak too. 



150 THE WINTER'S TALE. [act y 

Pol. Ay, and make 't manifest where she has 
lived, 
140 Or how stol'n from the dead. 

Paul. That she is living, 

Were it but told you, should be hooted at 
Like an old tale : but it appears she lives, 
Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while. — 
Please you to interpose, fair madam : kneel 
And pray your mother's blessing. — Turn, good 

lady ; 
Our Perdita is found. 

Her. You gods, look down 

And from your sacred vials pour your graces 
150 Upon my daughter's head ! — Tell me, mine own, 
Where hast thou been preserv'd ? where liv'd ? 

how found 
Thy father's court ? for thou shalt hear that I, 
Knowing by Paulina that the oracle 
Gave hope thou wast in being, have preserv'd 
Myself to see the issue. 

Paul. There 's time enough for tnat ; 

Lest they desire upon this push to trouble 
Your joys with like relation. Go together, 
You precious winners all; your exultation 
160 Partake to every one. I, an old turtle, 

Will wing me to some wither'd bough, and there 
My mate, that 's never to be found again, 
Lament till I am lost. 

Leon. O, peace, Paulina ! 

Thou should'st a husband take by my consent 
As I by thine a wife : this is a match, 
And made between 's by vows. Thou hast found 
mine : 



sc. in.] THE WINTER'S TALE. 151 

But how, is to be question'd ; for I saw her, 

As I thought, dead, and have in vain said many 

A prayer upon her grave. I '11 not seek far — 170 

For him, I partly know his mind— to find thee 

An honorable husband. Come, Camillo, 

And take her by the hand, whose worth and 

honesty 
Is richly noted and here justifi'd 
By us,a pair of kings. Let 's from this place. 
What ! look upon my brother : both your par- 
dons, 
That e'er I put between your holy looks 
My ill suspicion. This is your son-in-law 
And son unto the king, who, heavens directing, 
Is troth-plight to your daughter. Good Paulina, 180 
Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely 
Each one demand an answer to his part 
Perform'd in this wide gap of time since first 
We were dissever'd : hastily lead away. {Exeunt. 



NOTES. 



ACT I. 

Scene I. 

2. Bohemia : here, and throughout the play, Hanmer sub- 
stitutes Bithynia for Bohemia. 

lb. On the like ... on foot, on an occasion like to that in 
which I am now employed. 

4. Bohemia, the King of Bohemia, Polixenes. 

9. Wherein . . . loves : though it will not be in our power 
to entertain you with the same magnificence, the sincerity of 
our love shall atone for our shortcomings. 

11. Beseech you, pray continue what you were saying. 

12. In the freedom . . . knowledge : I speak freely, being 
so fully conscious of our inability to vie with you in this re- 
spect. 

15. Sleepy drinks, soporifics. 

19. You pay . . . freely, you thank us too lavishly for our 
hospitality which is so readily given. 

23. Sicilia . . . Bohemia. It is impossible for Leontes to be 
too kind to Polixenes. 

26. Such an affection . . . now, an affection so strong was 
then implanted in their breasts that it cannot but manifest it- 
self now in loving deeds towards each other. For such . . . 
which, see Abbott's Shak. Gr. § 278. 

27. Mature dignities, and royal necessities, the high posi- 
tion which on growing up they have been called upon to fill. 

29. Their encounters . . . attorneyed, their meetings by 
proxy, by the interchange of embassies. An attorney is one 
appointed or constituted, and then one appointed to act for 
another. 

33. Over a vast. Delius and Schmidt understand this as 
equivalent to a vast sea. But vast was formerly used in the 
sense of a waste place, a wide tract of uncultivated land. 

34. Opposed winds, opposite quarters of the e^rth. 

36. I think ... it. I believe that malicious suggestions c 

152 



sc. II.] NOTES. 153 

designing persons would not be able to interrupt the continu- 
ance of their love for each other. 

38. Of your, etc., as we should say " in your,' 1 etc. 

40. Into my note, under my notice. 

43. Physics the subject, the people collectively. As De- 
lius points out, the phrase is merely an adaptation of the words 
in the novel (Greene's Dorastus and Fawnia) trom which the 
.plot is taken : " Fortune .... lent them a sonne so adorned 
'with the gifts of nature, as the perfection of the childe greatly 
augmented the love of the parents, and the joy of their com- 
mons.'''' 



Scene II. 

1-3. Nine changes . . . burden : Nine times has the shep- 
herd" noted the changes of the moon,/.,?., nine months have 
gone by, since I left my throne without an occupant. Watery, 
from her influence upon the tides. 

5, 6. And yet . . . debt : and still we should depart eternally 
in your debt. 

6-9. And therefore . . . before it. A cipher at the right 
land, and not at the left as in decimal notaiion, multiplies the 
value of the figure. 

13, 14. I am . . . absence. My fears constantly torture me 
with questions as to what may suddenly happen, or gradually 
develop itself, owing to my prolonged absence. 

14, 16. That may blow . . . truly! This is generally taken as 
a wish, O that no nipping winds may blow 'no sharp storm of 
trouble burst upon me) to make me say, " ^ had only too good 
reason for my presentiments V Sneaping is connected with 
snap, snip, snub, and snujf'm the sense of cutting off the wick 
of a candle. 

17. To tire, so as to tire. 

Id. Your royalty, your royal hospitality. 

18, 19. We are ... to 't. We are made of better stuff than 
to have our hospitality taxed beyond its strength by any visit, 
however long, from one so dear to us. 

21. One seven-night, we still use " fortnight," but '"seven- 
night" is almost obsolete. Very sooth, "sooth"' 1 and "good 
sooth 1 ' are used by Shakespeare without any preposition. 

23. Part, halve. I '11 no gainsaying, I will take no refusal. 

25-28. There is . . . it. Under ordinary circumstances your 
words would carry more persuasion with me than those of any 
one else in the world ; and now too I should yield if what you 
asked were something of urgent importance to yourself, even 
though my own interests dictated a refuss 1 - 



154 NOTES. [act i. 

29. Do even drag, not only draw me homeward, but drag 
me. 

29, 30. Which to hinder ... to me. To hinder which (i. e., 
my return home) would be to make your love to me a punish- 
ment. Whip, in this metaphorical sense of scourge, instrument 
of correction, is frequent in Shakespeare. 

31. To save both, the inconvenience to himself as well as 
" the charge and trouble"' 1 to Leontes. 

34) 35» Until . . . stay, until he~ had bound himself in the 
strongest possible way not to remain, and then to have attacked 
him and compelled him to yield. 

36. Charge, adjure. 

37, 38. This satisfaction . . . proclaim'd, the news yester- 
day received from Bohemia satisfactorily proved this. 

39. His best ward,, you beat down his strongest guard, a 
fencing term. For beat, see Abb. § 343. 

41. To tell . . . strong. If he were to say that his anxiety to 
go was caused by his desire to see his son, that would be ar 
argument difficult to get over. 

42-44. But let him . . . distaffs. Let him otiiy say so, and 
he is free to go; let him o?ily swear it, and we will not merely 
let him go but will forcibly drive him away: distaffs, because 
it is a woman who is speaking. 

45, 46. Yet of . . . week, still, in. spite of all I will be bold 
enough to claim the loan of your presence here for a week 
longer. 

46-49. When . . . parting, when you carry him off for a visit 
to you, I will authorize him to stay a month longer than the 
time fixed at his starting. To let him is used reflexively. 
Gests, or rather gists, from the Fr. giste (which signifies 
both a bed and a lodging-place), were the names cf the houses 
or towns where the king or prince intended to lie every night 
during his progress. 

50, 51. I love thee . . . her lord, I love }-ou not one whit less 
than anv Lid y r whatsoever loves her husband. Jar o' the clock, 
tick of the clock ; lit. I am not one moment behind any woman 
in the world in loving, etc. On what, in an elliptical expres- 
sion like this, see Abb. § 255. 

56. Limber, flexible, that can easily be bent or turned. 
" Closely allied to//;;//, flexible, and similarly formed from the 
same Teut. base LAP, to hang loosely down ; the j> being 
weakened to b for ease of pronunciation. The suffix -er is ad- 
jectival, as in bitt-er, fai-r* (Skeat, Ety. Did.'). 

57. Though you . . . oaths, though you should endeavor by 
the strength of your oaths to bring the stars down from their 
sphere ; aa ailu^pn to the belief that witches and sorcerers 



sc. ii.] NOTES. 155 

could by their oaths and incantations call down the moon from 
the sky. 
60. Will you go yet ? are'you still determined upon going ? 

62. So, in that case. 

63. Save your thanks, not be put to the expense of thanks. 
Id. Behind, i.e. behind the present, in the future. 

79. Verier, more complete, thorough. 

81. What we changed, the thoughts we interchanged 
were pure and innocent. 

85, 86. And our . . . blood, had not our innocent disposition 
been stirred to a higher pitch by stronger animal passion, we, 
etc. Rear'd here seems to involve the idea not only of being 
raised, but also the secondary idea of being brought up. 

87, 88. The imposition . . . ours, " That is, were the penalty 
remitted which we inherit from the transgression of our first 
parents " (Staunton). 

96. Grace to boot ! God help us ! show his grace to us ! Boot 
is a substantive, and signifies profit, advantage. Hermione is 
humorously indignant at the inference, to be drawn from Pol- 
ixenes' words, that his and Leontes' sins were due to their be- 
coming acquainted with their wives. 

97. Of this . . . conclusion, do not carry your argument to 
its legitimate conclusion or you will be obliged to say that 
your queen and I are devils, i.e., in having tempte d you to 
swerve from the path of virtue. 

112. As fat . . . things, those animals that are kept to be fat- 
tened for the table. 

lb. Tongueless, in a passive sense, not talked of. 

114-116. You may . . . acre, a slight kindness will get a great 
deal more out of us than any amount of harshesss. Heat, 
travel over, from the substantive which means a measured dis- 
tance to be raced over. 

116. But to the goal, but to come to the point. 

118. It has . . . sister, I at some time previous did a deed 
that in goodness was akin to this. 

' 119. O, would . . . Grace ! Would speak of it as a gracious 
deed. 

123. Three crabbed . . . death, a reference to the sourness 
of the wild apple. 

125. And clasp . . . love. The custom of joining hands as a 
token of betrothal. 

127. 'Tis grace indeed. Then the name of that deed of 
mine is really " grace," as I hoped you would christen it. 

132. To mingle . . . bloods. This extreme intimacy of 
friendship indicates a reciprocity of passionate feeling. 

133. Tremor cordis, trembling, throbbing of the heart. 
134-137. This entertainment . . . agent. This cordiality 



156 NOTES. [act i. 

may wear the look of innocence ; its freedom may be the out- 
come of genuine friendship, of goodness of heart, that ever- 
teeming soil, and so be becoming to one who shows it. 
139. Practic'd smiles, studied, not natural. 

141. The mort o' the deer, a long-drawn breath like that 
drawn by the huntsman in sounding the horn at the death of 
the deer. 

142. Nor my brows ! A reference to the belief that horns 
grew on the forehead of a man whose wife had been unfaith- 
ful to him; said to have arisen" out of the story of Action, 
who, spying Diana bathing, was punished by having horns 
grow out of his forehead. 

145. I' fecks, supposed to be a corruption of in faith. 

146. Why . . . bawcock. A burlesque term of endearment, 
probably from the Fr. beau cog, fine cock. 

147. A copy out, an exact model of mine. Captain, a hu- 
morous term of affection. 

148. Not neat, but cleanly. " Leontes, seeing his son's 
nose smutchM, cries, ive must be neat ; then recollecting that 
neat is an ancient term for hor?ied cattle, he says, not neat, but 
cleanly'''' (Johnson). 

149. 150. And yet . . . neat. And yet the term is applicable 
to you, for it is given generically, not only to the bull and the 
cow, but also to the calf. Still Virginalling. " The virginals 
(probably so called because chiefly played upon by young 
girls), resembled in shape the ' square 1 pianoforte of the present 
day, as the harpsichord did the 'grand. 1 " (Chappell's Pop. 
Music of the Olden Times.') 

151. Wanton calf, frolicsome, sportive. 

i54» J 55- Thou want'st . . . like me. " You tell me that 
you are like me ; that you are my calf. I am the horned bull : 
thou wantest the rozigk head and the horns of that animal, 
completely to resemDle your father " (Malone). ' Pash, the 
head. 

158. As o'er-dy'd blacks. Three interpretations have been 
given : (1) mourning dyed too much and so becoming rotten ; 
(2) faded or damaged stuffs dyed black in order to hide their 
real condition; (3) black things painted with another color 
through which the ground will soon appear. The first of these 
three interpretations is probably the best. 

159, 160. As dice . . . mine. As one who sets no boundary 
between what is his and what mine would wish the dice with 
which he played to be. Bourn, boundary, limit. 

161. Sir page, like " sweet villain !" 

162. Welkin, properly the sky, hence, here, sky-colored, 
blue. 



sc. ii.] NOTES, 157 

163. Collop, properly a slice of meat and so a part of one's 
own flesh, as a wife in reference to her husband is said to be 
" bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh.'" 

164-172. Affection . . . brows. The meaning probably is, 
Imagination, thy intensity pierces to the very center, goes to 
the very root of one's being ; thou makest that to be possible 
which no one could have believed to be so ; thou dost work in 
concert with dreams, strange as this may seem (" how can 
this be P' 1 ), art in league with what is unreal and dost link thy- 
self with what is non-existent: then, this being so, it is easy to 
believe that thou mayest co-operate with what has real exist- 
ence (here, the supposed guilt of his wife) ; and thou dost so even 
beyond all warrant, and I feel your influence to such a degree 
that my brain has become infected by thee, and I imagine my- 
self to be a cuckold. Credent for credible. 

174. Something unsettled, somewhat disturbed in mind. 

177, 178. You look . . . distraction, the look of your brow is 
that of a man much agitated. Mov'd, excited. 

181-183. How sometimes . . . bosoms ! How sometimes 
natural affection will betray its weakness and make a man the 
laughing-stock of those less tender-hearted. 

184. Recoil, go back in imagination. 

185. Unbreech'd, without breeches, being too young for 
that article of dress. 

186. Muzzled, with its sheath carefully fastened on so as to 
prevent its getting loose and so wounding me. 

189. This kernel, this seed which will one day grow to the 
full fruit. 

190. Squash, an immature peascod. 

191. "Will you . . . money? "To take eggs for money" 
seems to have been used in two senses, (1) to allow oneself to 
be cajoled, (2) to put up with an affront. 

193. Happy man be 's dole ! may happiness be his portion, 
that which is doled or dealt out to him by the fates. 

197. My exercise, he is that which 'constantly occupies my 
attention. My mirth, my matter, the subject of my mirthtul 
and of my serious movements. 

198. Now my sworn . . .enemy, at one moment the dear- 
est of friends, at the next my bitter foe (said of course play- 
fully to indicate his varying moods). 

199. My parasite, one who fawns upon me for entertain- 
ment. 

201. Varying childness, the varying moods of his young 
mind. Thick, thicken, curdle. 

203-4. 1° squire and offie'd there is an allusion to the duties 
of an attendant upon a knight. 



158 NOTES. [act i. 

209. Apparent to my heart, the heir apparent being the 
person who, if he survive the ancestor, must be his heir, the 
term is here used as most nearly akin, closest, to his affections. 

211, Shall 's, a not uncommon use in Shakespeare, who also 
has the converse we for us. 

212, 213. To your own . . . sky. Occupy yourselves in any 
way you are inclined: "in the concluding- words there is the 
secondary meaning, " I shall detect your practices however 
secret you may be. 1 ' 

213, 214. I 'm angling . . . line. lam only " playing" you 
as a fisherman plays a fish, letting out plenty of line, which 
the fish would quickly snap if it were drawn tight at once. 

215. Go to, generally an exclamation of impatience or con- 
tempt. 

216. Neb, according to Steevens, the mouth ; according to 
Dyce, the nose ; lit. the beak, bill of a bird. 

218. Allowing, in the frequent Shakespearian sense of ap- 
proving. 

220. Inch-thick . . . one ! " Inch-thick" and "knee-deep " 
are both expressive of excess. 

220. A fork'd one, a cuckold. 

229, 230. It is a . . . predominant : a reference to astrology, 
in which so-called science " predominant " is a technical term ; 
the star which rules these matters is a lustful one and will 
strike those born under it, do what they may. 

238, 239. You'd . . . home. You had a great deal of trouble 
in persuading him: His anchor, the anchor by which you 
hoped to secure him: Still came home, a nautical metaphor, 
repeatedly failed to take hold of the bottom ; came away 
when a strain was put upon it. 

241. At your petitions, at your demand. Made . . . mate- 
rial, represented his business at home as of more importance, 
more urgent. 

244. They 're here with me already. " By ' they 're here 
-with me already, 1 the .King means, — the people are already 
mocking me with this opprobrious gesture (the cuckold's em- 
blem with their fingers), and whispering." etc. (Staunton). 

The cuckold^ emblem, to which Staunton refers, was the 
holding of the fingers in the form of a V. 

lb. Rounding. " The name Runic was so called from the 
term which was used by our barbarian ancestors to designate 
the mystery of alphabetic writing. This was Run, sing., 
Rune, pi. . . . This word Run signified mystery or secret ; 
and a verb of this root was in use down to "a comparatively 
recent date in English literature, as. an equivalent for the 
verb to whisper. ... It was also used of any kind of dis- 
course ; but mostly of private and privileged communication 



sc. ii.] NOTES. 159 

in council or conference. . . . This roivn became roivnd and 
round on the principle of n attracting d to follow it. . . . 
(Earle, Phil, of the.Eng. Tongue, 93, 4). 

245. "Siciliais a so-forth." " This was a phrase employed 
when the speaker wished to escape the utterance of an obnox- 
ious term. . . y (Steevens.) The obnoxious term here was of 
course " cuckold." 

- lb. T is far gone'. . . last : matters have come to a pretty- 
pass when they are so bad that no one dare speak of them to 
me. 

250. Taken, conceived, taken in, by any clear-sighted per- 
sons besides yourself. 

252, 253. For thy . . . blocks. Your conception (conceit) is 
one that quickly absorbs, imbibes, facts which for the com- 
mon herd would have no significance : blocks, wooden-headed 
fellows, blockheads, as we say ; the block on which hats were 
formed being a wooden model of the human head. 

254. But of, except by the keener intelligences. By some 
severals . . . extraordinary ? by certain particular persons 
who have more brains than the ordinary person. 

255. Lower messes, those who sat at the lower end of the 
table, below the great salt, or at tables where the charge was 
less ; hence people of inferior rank, and so of inferior intelli- 
gence. 

266. Let that suffice, that is enough, I don't wish to hear 
more. 

272. In that which seems so. He modifies his use of the 
word integrity by saying, " in thy integrity, or rather in that 
which seems so, but is not.' 1 

274. To bide upon % " equivalent to ' my abiding opinion 
is' " (Dyce). 

276. Which hoxes . » . behind, which lames honest action, 
prevents the course of straightforward action. Hough ox hock 
is the joint in the hind leg of a quadruped between the knee 
and fetlock, and hough, the verb, to cut the hamstring of a 
horse, has been corrupted into hox. Restraining, sc. it. 

278. A servant . . . trust, one who though placed in so inti- 
mate relation with matters of importance that he ought to be- 
come, as it were, part and parcel of the,m, is yet negligent 
about them. 

287. Puts forth, shoots out, as a bud, leaf, branch. 

287-295. In your . . . wisest, to deal with all these charges, 
I would say, If ever I was obstinately negligent in your af- 
fairs, such negligence is to be put down to folly, not to inten- 
tional betrayal of your interests ; if ever, again, my folly was 
of a deliberate, persistent character, this was due to a want of. 
consideration of tU ~ be expected ; if, lastly, I ever 



160 NOTES. [act i. 

hesitated through fear to^ do a thing the (successful) issue of 
which I doubted, anything the execution of which when done 
cried out against the non-performance of it before, the fear 
then shown by me was such as often infects even the very 
wisest of men. 

299. By its own visage, in its own likeness, as it really was. 

302. Eye-glass means here the retina of the eye. 

307, 308. You can avoid confessing only by impudently de- 
claring that you have neither eyes nor ears nor thought. 

310. Hobby-hores, a cant name for a wanton. 

lb. Say 't and justify 't, say that she is unchaste, and prove 
your assertion, as you can easily do. 

312. Clouded so, her character so blackened. Without . . . 
taken, without taking immediate vengeance on the slanderer. 

315, 316. Which to . . . true, to repeat which would be a 
sin as heinous as that of which you accuse her, even if your 
accusation were a true one. 

321. Breaking honesty, virtue giving way. 

324. Blind . . . web, one of the popular names for cataract, 
a film growing over the eye. 

327. Bohemia, Polixenes. 

338. A hovering temporizer, a mere time-server. 

342. The running of one glass, the time which the sand in 
the hour-glass takes to run from one bulb into the other. 

344, 345. Why he . . . neck. Steevens, whom Dyce follows, 
says that Polixenes wore her as he would have worn a medal 
of her, round his neck. 

346. Bare eyes, etc., had, or owned, eyes that were as fully 
open to what concerned my honor as to their own advantages, 
they would do that which should put a stop to any further 
iniquities between Polixenes and Hermione. 

350, 351. Whom I . . . worship, whom I have raised from 
lower degree and advanced to an honorable position. 

354. A lasting wink, death. 

355. Were cordial, would revive my spirits as a cordial, a 
drink given to stimulate the heart, would do. 

360. Crack, flaw in her virtue. Dread, for whom I have 
such respectful awe. 

361. So . . . honorable, who is of such supreme honor, the 
primary meaning of the word sovereign. 

lb. Malone's interpretation is as follows : " This refers to 
what Camillo has just said relative to the queen's chastity, 
' I cannot . . . mistress.' Not believe it, replies Leontes; make 
that {i.e., Hermione's disloyalty) a subject of debate or discus- 
sion, and go rot ! Dost thou think I am such a fool as to tor- 
ment myself and to bring disgrace on me and my children 
without sufficient grounds !" 



sc. H.] NOTES. 161 

364. So muddy, in the sense of troubled in mind ; unsettled 
continues the metaphor of water the bottom of which has been 
disturbed, and which has not had time to settle and clear itself. 

368. To complete the meter of this line, Walker would insert 
vipers between nettles and tails : Steevens proposes "goads 
and thorns, nettles and tails." 

371. Ripe moving, the most complete provocation to do so. 

372. Blench, be so fitful, pass so weakly from one course to 
another. 

374. 'Will fetch off, make away with him, i e., by poison. 

377-379. And thereby . . . yours. And in order by so doing 
to close the malicious mouths of those who otherwise would 
spread all manner of malicious reports in, etc. 

384. Clear, free from all appearance of suspicion. 

385. Keep with, associate with. 

391. Split'st thine own. Dost crack thine own by being 
only half loyal to me. 
403. Nor brass, etc., no record of any kind. One, example. 

405. To do 't . . . breakneck, to do it and to leave it undone 
are equally fatal to me. 

406. Happy star . . . now ! May some good Providence 
care for my country. 

409. To warp, to be twisted out of shape. Not speak ? 
would he not speak to me, referring to Folixenes' having passed 
him without a word as they met. 

413. None rare, none of any unusual nature. 

423. Do not. You must mean do not, not dare not. 

424. Intelligent, communicative. 'T is thereabouts, that is, 
you must mean you dare not communicate to me what you 
know, for, etc. 

427. Complexions, looks; Shakespeare uses the word in a 
wider sense than that it has nowadays. 

430. Alter'd, rather in the way he is treated than in himself. 

432. Distemper, state of perturbation. 

436. Make me . . . basilisk. Do not represent me as having 
the eye of the basilisk ; a fabulous serpent whose look killed 
those on whom it fell. 

438. Regard, look. 

439-442. Thereto . . . gentle, in addition to that an accom- 
plished scholar, a qualification which lends as much ornament 
to our gentle birth as the noble names of our parents, by descent 
from whom we get the right to the title of gentlemen. 
Success = succession, here only. 

445. Ignorant concealment, the secrecy of ignorance, igno- 
rant being used in a proleptic sense. 

448-451. All the parts ... of mine, all the duties which hon- 



1 62 NOTES. [act i. 

orable men acknowledge, among- which to grant this request 
of mine is not the least imperative. 

45 2 i 453- What incidency . . . me, what falling of harm is 
slowly coming near me ? what danger is impending over me? 

454. If to be, i.e., prevented. 

457. Charg'd in honor, bound by that sense of honor to 
which you, an honorable man, have appealed. 

460, 461. Or both . . . night! or both yourself and I may bid 
farewell to all hopes of life ; good night, in the sense of " fare- 
well for ever, 1 ' is frequent in Shakespeare. 

463. I am . . . you. The construction is apparently a con- 
fusion between " I am appointed he who should murder you," 
and, "He appointed me to murder you." 

468, 469. Or been an ... to 't, or been an instrument em- 
ployed to screw you up to the perpetration of the deed ; vice 
was not used in the restricted sense of more modern times, but 
might mean any kind of machinery. 

471, 472. O, then . . .jelly, if such was the case, may the 
purest blood in my veins become curdled into a clotted mass. 

473. His, Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Christ (the Best). 

475, 476. That may . . . arrive, a stench so rank that my ap- 
proach would be offensive even to those whose sense of smell 
is dullest. 

479-481. Swear . . . influences, " swear-over," a tmesis for 
41 over-swear." Influence, one' of the technical terms of 
astrology. 

486. The standing of, etc., accusative of duration of time. 

487. How should . . . grow ? how is it possible that he 
should have come to entertain such a belief? 

491. This trunk, my body. 

492. Bear along impawn'd, carry off with you as a pledge 
of my fidelity. 

493. Whisper to the business, prepare them for our de- 
parture by giving them instructions secretly. 

494. At several . . . city, get them out of the city by different 
posterns so as to avoid notice. 

497. By this discovery, by my having revealed this to you. 
Be not uncertain, do not waver. 

499, 500. Which if . . . stand by, and if you should test my 
information by speaking to Leontes, I dare not stay to see the 
result. 

501, 502. Thereon . '. . sworn, and whose death as a sequel 
to his conviction has been predetermined. 

505, 506. Be pilot . . . mine, be my guide in this matter, and 
you shall ever have your abode near me. , 

507. My hence departure, an inversion. 

509. As she's rare, in proportion to her rare excellence. 



SC. I.] 



NOTES. 163 



513. Profess'd to him, made professions of friendship. 

515-517. Good expedition . . . suspicion. The meaning prob- 
ably is that given by Malone : " Good expedition befriend me 
by removing me from a place of danger, and comfort the queen 
by removing the object of her husband's jealousy ; the queen, 
who is the subject of his conversation, but without reason the 
object of his suspicion I" Part of his theme, Polixenes being 
the other part. 

519. Bear'st my life off, get me away safe from this country. 
Avoid, depart, or perhaps separate. 

522. To take the urgent hour, to seize the opportunity 
ybile there is yet time to do so. 



ACT II. 
Scene I. 

5. I Tl none of you, I will have nothing to do with you. 

11. Brows, eyebrows. 

12. So that, provided that. 

13. 14. But in a ... pen, arched like a bow, and delicately 
shaded as though drawn with a pen. 

21. What wisdom . . . you ? said playfully ; what are these 
subjects you are so wisely discussing? 

22. Am for you, am ready to play with you again. 

30. You 're powerful at it, I know well how clever you are 
in frightening us with these goblins. 

36. Give 't me . . . ear, whisper it to me. 

39. Scour, hurry, scamper off. 

41, 42. How blest . . . opinion! said ironically: "just cen- 
sure 1 ' and "true opinion" are identical in meaning, "cen- 
sure " in Elizabethan English more often having a colorless 
than a condemnatory sense. 

43, 44. Alack, for . . . blest! that certainty I was so anxious 
to gain has now, when gained, turned out a curse. 

44-47. There may . . . infected : A spider may be in the 
cup, and, so long as he knows nothing about it, a man may go 
away, having drunk, without absorbing any poison. 

49. Cracks his gorge, retches with violence, as if he would 
split his throat. 

50. Hefts, heavings, retchings. 

53. All 's true . . . mistrusted : all my fears had only too 
good a foundation. 
55. Discover'd, revealed to Polixenes. 



164 NOTES. [act ii. 

56. Remain a pinch'd thing, a thing pinch'd out of clouts, 
a puppet for them to move and actuate as they please. To 
finch was in Shakespeare^ day used in a stronger sense than 
it now has, e.g., 1 H. IV. i. 3. 229, " Save how to ga.ll and fznck 
this Bolingbroke." 

60, 61. Which often . . .-command, which has often had the 
same efficacy as your express order. 

64. Some signs of me, some marks of personal resemblance. 

65. Too much blood in him, too large a share in his physi- 
cal constitution. 

73. "With out-door form, external appearance. 

74. Straight, forthwith, immediately. 

79, 80. When you . . . honest. Before you have time to add 
to your commendations of her beauty your admiration of her 
character, you are interrupted by these marks of contempt in- 
voluntarily exhibited either in gesture or in words. 

84. Most replenish'd, most complete. 

85. He were . . . villain, his villany would become double 
what it was before. 

87, 88. You have . . . Leontes. It is not I that have made a 
mistake, but you ; and your mistake is taking Polixenes for 
me. 

89. A creature of thy place, one occupying your lofty posi- 
tion. 

90. Barbarism, abstract for concrete, ill-bred people. 

92, 93. And mannerly . . . beggar. And between the prince 
and the beggar make no such distinction as good manners dic- 
tate when speaking of them. 

97, 98. What she . . . principal, what she ought to be 
ashamed of even if no one except her vile seducer were privy 
to that knowledge, and not we as well. 

100. That vulgars . . . titles, whom the lower classes speak 
of in the coarsest language. 

104, 105. That you . . . me ! That you have publicly de- 
clared me to be an adultress. Gentle my lord, for this trans- 
position see Abb. § 13. 

106. To say, by saying. 

109. In those . . . upon, in the matter of those proofs on 
which I rest my belief. 

no, in. The center . . . top. The earth, " as the supposed 
center of the world " (Schmidt), is not firm enough to bear the 
weight of a school-boy's top. 

112. He who . . . speaks. " Far off guilty signifies guilty in 
a remote degree " (Johnson). But that, in merely speaking. 

114. Aspect like, influence, predominant, a technical term in 
astrology. 

118, 119. The want of . . . pities, and possibly this inability 



sc. I.J NOTES. 165 

of mine to weep may have the effect of drying up the fountain 
of your pity. 

120, 121. Which burns . . . drown, which burns with a 
fierceness that no flow of tears could quench. 

122, 123. 'With thoughts . . . me, judge me with thoughts 
so tempered with mercy as your charitable disposition may dic- 
tate. 

125. Shall I be heard ? Do you mean to obey my orders 
and carry her off to prison ? 

126. Beseech . . . with me, I entreat your majesty to let 
my women-servants attend me to prison. 

128. Good fools, my foolish but faithful servants. 

131, 132. This action . . . grace, my going to prison has been 
permitted by God for the chastisement and purifying of my 
nature. 

137. Your justice, what you conceive to be justice. 

145-147. If it prove . . . with her, if Herrnione prove un- 
faithful, I^'ll never trust my wife out of my sight ; I "11 always 
go in couples with her ; and in that respect my house shall re- 
semble a stable where dogs are kept in pairs. 

148. Than when . . . her, will not trust her beyond my 
sight and touch. 

155. Some putter-on, some instigator who has an object in 
deceiving you. 

161. Instruments, the fingers. 

166. What ! . . . credit ? do you venture to say you do not 
believe me? 

168. Upon this ground, in this matter. 

170. Be blam'd . . . might, however men might blame you 
"for so hastily suspecting her. 

173-175. Our . . . this, it is not that we as king exercise our 
prerogative of demanding your advice, but that out of our nat- 
ural goodness we impart this information, and our determina- 
tion in the matter. 

181-183. And I wish . . . overture. Antigonus assenting 
says, It is so, and I only wish that in judging of her guilt or 
innocence you had been led by such a feeling to confine the 
matter to your own breast without disclosing it to any one 
else. 

184. Art most . . . age, have become a dotard. 

188-191. Which was . . . deed, which was a thing as palpa- 
ble as ever amounted to well-founded suspicion, suspicion 
that wanted for confirmation nothing but the actualsight. Ap- 
probation = proof, frequent in Shakespeare. 

194. Wild, rash. 

197. Of stuff'd sufficiency, " of abilities more than enough " 
(Johnson). 



166 NOTES. [act ii. 

198. Will bring all, everything that is necessary. Had, 
being received. 

204. 'Whose . . . truth, who from ignorant credulity is not 
able to arrive at the truth. 

206. From our free person, we have decided that she 
should be shut up where she cannot approach us who are ac- 
cessible to all. 

207, 208. Lest that . . . perform. For fear that she may 
have been left behind to carryMnto execution the treachery 
planned by Polixenes and Camillo. 

210. Raise us, excite us, cause a commotion among us ; yes, 
says Antigonus, aside, ,a commotion of laughter, if the real 
truth were known. 



Scene II. 

1. Call to him, summon him. 

8. For, as being. 

14- 16. Here 's ado . . . visitors | A pretty fuss you are mak- 
ing in your conscientious anxiety to prevent Hermione from 
seeing me ! 

26, 27. Here 's such . . . coloring. Your endeavor to make 
that appear a stain which is not really so is beyond all excuse ; 
a pun upon the word color in its literal sense. Passes = sur- 
passes, exceeds ; frequent in Shakespeare. 

30, 31. As well as . . . together. As well as it is possible for 
one so great to be while in such miserable circumstances. To 
hold together, to exist without falling to pieces. On, upon, 
in consequence of. 

32. Which . . . greater, than which no delicate lady like 
her has ever borne greater. 

33. Something, somewhat. 

36. Lusty, strong and likely to live. The queen ... in 't, 
we should now say either " finds much comfort in it," or " re- 
ceives much comfort from it." 

39. I dare be sworn, of that I am certain. 

40. These . . . them ! Curses on these mad freaks of the 
king ! Lunes, a Fr. word borrowed by Shakespeare, and ap- 
parently peculiar to him. 

43-45. If I . . . more. If I do not upbraid him soundly, may 
my tongue never again serve me to express my anger. Red- 
look'd anger, anger manifested by a heightened color. 

46. Commend . . . queen. Give my commendation to her, 
or, Say that I commend myself to her, meaning that I commit 



sc. in.] NOTES. 167 

and recommend myself to her affectionate remembrance. At 
the same time, in considering the question of the origin and 
proper meaning of the English phrase, the custom of what 
was called Commendation in the Feudal System is not to be 
overlooked : the vassal was said to commend himself to the 
person whom he selected for his lord. 

55. Free undertaking, spontaneous Miss, fail to meet 
with. 

58. Presently, at once. 

60. Hammer 'd . . . design, was trying to shape out some 
such plan. 

61. Minister of honor, any person of high position about 
the court. 



Scene III. 

2. To bear . . . thus, to submit to be tortured in this way 
without making any effort to avenge myself. 

4, Harlot, orig. used of either sex indifferently ; in fact, 
more commonly of men in Mid. Eng. It has not either a very 
bad sense, and means little more than " fellow." 

5, 6. Out of . . . brain, beyond the ?im of any attempt that I 
can make against him. Blank and level are terms of archery. 
Plot-proof, as we say " j/W-proof," I.e., proof against shot. 

6, 7. But she . . . me, but her (as we should say) I can get 
hold of, though I cannot reach him. Say that, suppose that, 
etc. A moiety, Lat. medietas, but here, used loosely for h 
part, not the precise half. 

16. Threw off, at once lost his former good spirits. 

19. Solely, alone. 

20. Him, Polixenes. 

30. Be second to me, second me in my efforts instead of 
hindering me. 

33. Free, innocent, pure. 

34. That' s enough, enough and more than enough, for he 
is absurdly jealous. 

46, 47. Needful . . . highness, " gossips 11 here in the sense of 
sponsors at baptism. For your highness, i.e., who are to act 
as sponsors at the baptism of your newly-born child. 

56. In this matter, unless he imitate you in committing his 
wife to prison for doing what is honorable, be sure he shall 
not restrain me. Com7nit and committing are used in two 
different senses, and in the latter case the sarcasm consists in 
applying to the word honor a term which is properly applied 
to what is dishonorable, sinful, criminal. 



168 NOTES. [act ii. 

60-62. La you now . . . stumble, you see she does not hesi- 
tate to scold even your highness : when once she takes the bit 
between her teeth, I never try to rein her in ; but, unlike other 
jades, she will not stumble when thus given the rein. 

66-68. Yet that dare . . . yours, a counselor, and yet one" 
who in the matter of encouraging your ailments dares to ap- 
pear less loyal than some of those who make the greatest pro- 
fessions of loyalty. 

73, 74. And would . . .you, and would by combat in the 
lists establish her innocence, if I were a man, even the weak- 
est in your court. To make good a thing, to establish or 
maintain it. - 

76, 77. Let him . . . me, let him who cares nothing about 
his eyes be the first to lay hands upon me, for assuredly I will 
scratch them out of his face. 

82. A mankind witch. The epithet mankind was applied 
even to beasts in the sense of '■'■ferocious.'''' 

87, 88. Which . . . honest. And if I am as honest as you 
are mad, I shall easily pass muster for honesty among people 
of the present day, for there can be little question as to your 
madness. 

91, 92. Thou art . . . here. Thou art henpecked, and driven 
from thy roost by this noisy mate of thine. " Part let is the 
name of the hen in the old story-book of Reynard the Fox'''' 
(Steevens). 

94-97. For ever . . . upon 't ! For ever accursed be your 
hands if you venture to take up by the name of bastard the 
princess upon whom he has sought to fix that stigma. 

103. Nor I, nor any, etc. The only traitor here is himself, 
for he has been untrue to himself, his queen, his son, his 
daughter, in casting a slur upon them that pierces more 
deeply than the thrust of a sword. 

107-110. And will not . . . opinion, and will not of his own 
accord, and it is impossible to compel him. Remove the root 
of his opinion, is equivalent to " root out his opinion. 1 " 

112. Callat, a drab, a jade, etc. 

119. And, might we, etc. And if we might apply the old 
proverb to you, we should say, In being like you it is all the 
worse. 

121. Print, type ; matter and copy are also technical terms 
here. 

123. The trick of 's frown, the peculiar form of his frown. 

128. The ordering of the mind, the regulating of its com- 
plexion, character. Yellow, the color of jealousy. 

129, 130. Lest she. . . husband's. The expression is merely 
a general way of praying that she may not, when grown to 
womanhood, have a mind diseased with jealousy asLeontes' is. 



sc. i.] NOTES. 169 

132. Lozel. An idle, loose fellow, a runagate. . . . Lozel is 
from A. S. losian, to be lost, to run away. 

138) 139- A most . . . more. No husband, however bad, can 
do more, be more tyrannical. 

155. 'What needs. There is no need of your being so offi- 
cious in pushing me out. 

181. This purpose, of throwing the babe into the fire. 

184. I am . . .blows : I am, it seems, in your opinions, like 
a feather to be blown here and there by every wind ; said with 
the ironical contempt of one who believes strongly in his own 
firmness, though he immediately afterwards justifies by his 
vacillation the very opinion at which he is sneering. 

188. It shall . . . neither, and yet it shall not. 

190. With Lady . . . there. Margery, as a homely name, is 
applied contemptuously to Paulina, who is also in the same 
spirit called not Antigonus' wife but his midwife, with refer- 
ence to her anxiety to save the life of the babe. 

195. May undergo . . . impose, anything that I am capable 
of undertaking, and that you may honorably enjoin upon me. 

199. By this sword ; the handle of the sword being in the 
form of a cross, it was customary to swear by it. 

204. Lewd-tongu'd, scurrilous, foul-mouthed. On the his- 
tory of the word lewd see Skeat, Ety. Diet. 

206. Liege-man, " faithful, subject, true, bound by feudal 
tenure" (Skeat, Ety. Diet.). 

218, 219. Kites and ravens . . . wolves and bears, in the 
former expression there is probably a relerence to Elijah's be- 
ing fed by ravens (see Kings, xvii. 4, 6), in the latter to Romu- 
lus and Remus suckled by wolves. 

221, 222. Sir, be . . . require, to a greater extent than this 
deed deserves. A sort of farewell, as though Antigonus knew 
that he was never to see the king again. 

230. Well, safely. 

233. Beyond account, such as has never been known before. 

236, 237. Will have . . . appear, has determined in his di- 
vine will that the truth shall quickly be made known. 

243. Think . . . bidding. Take care that it is performed. 



ACT III. 

Scene I. 

2. Isle, Shakespeare may or may not have known his geog- 
raphy better, but he takes the "Isle of Delphos" from 
Greene's Novel. 



170 NOTES. [act in. 

5. For most it caught me, for that was what most at- 
tracted my attention. It comprehends the dresses and the 
manner in which they were worn by the priests. 

9. I' the offering, when being offered. 

13. That I was nothing, that I was utterly bewildered. 

17. The time . . . on 't. . If the event prove fortunate to the 
queen, the time which wehave spent in our journey is worth 
the trouble it hath cost us. 

19. These proclamations, from the Novel (quoted by De- 
lius), " He therefore caused a generall proclamation to .be 
made," etc. 

22, 23. The violent . . . business. The headstrong manner 
in which Leontes has proceeded will clear up all doubts, or at 
all events will settle the matter once for all. 

24-26. Thus, he touches or points to the sealed packet con- 
taining the oracle : divine, priest : discover, reveal : some- 
thing rare . . . knowledge, some unexpected and important 
disclosure will suddenly burst upon us. 



Scene II. 

4, 5. Let us . . . tyrannous, the fact that we proceed with 
such open justice ought to free us from the charge of being ty- 
rannical. 

18. The pretense, the design, intention. 

23. Am to say ; have to say. 

27-29. Mine integrity . . . receiv'd. That is, my virtue be- 
ing accounted wickedness, my assertion of it will pass but for 
a lie. 

29. But thus, but as I have to speak, this is what I say. 

33. Patience, endurance such as mine. 

34. Who least ... do so, and yet you are least willing to 
own to such knowledge. 

36. "Which is more, my misery. Can pattern, can parallel, 
give an example of. 

38. To take, so constructed as to interest greatly. 

39. Fellow, sharer. Owe = own, as frequently in Eliza- 
bethan English. 

43, 44. For life . . . spare, as for life, I regard it exactly as I 
regard grief, as a thing which I would gladly get rid of. 

44, 45. For honor . . . tor, as regards honor, it is a heritage 
from me to my children, and it is for this only, as being a mat- 
ter of importance, that I fight. 

50, 51. With what . . . thus. Staunton paraphrases, " By 
what unwarrantable familiarity have I lapsed, that I should 
be made to stand as a public criminal thus." 



sc. ii.] NOTES. 171 

51-53. If one jot . . . inclining, if I have lapsed (strain'd) a 
hair's breadth beyond the limit of virtue, inclining- towards that 
excess either in act or intention. 

56-59. I ne'er heard . . . first. I never heard that any of 
these bolder vices {i.e., the perpetrators of them) lacked shame- 
lessness in denying- their deeds equal to that shown in commit- 
ting them. 

61. Due to me, applicable to me. 

63-65. More than . . . acknowledge. To Leontes' taunt that 
the saying does apply to her, only she will not admit it, Her- 
mione replies, " It is not for me to acknowledge myself possess- 
or of more than belongs to me under the title of fault ; to 
these ' bolder vices ' I have no claim." Comes to me, by 
inheritance from our first parents. 

71. Had been, would have been. 

72. Disobedience, referring to him, ingratitude to his friend. 
75-77. Now. . . how. As for conspiracy, I am an utter 

stranger to its taste ; I should not know that conspiracy was 
conspiracy even if I were brought into close contact with it. 

80. Wotting no more, i.e., if they know no more. 

85. Stands in . . . dreams ; not exactly -within the reach, as 
Johnson says, but in a direct line with, and so in danger of be- 
ing hit. 

89. But dream'd it, merely dreamed it ; with grim irony. 

91. Which . . . avails. To deny which may be a matter of 
importance to you, but will have no effect upon me. 

92. Like to itself, with the disgrace that properly belongs to 
it. 

95. In whose . . . passage, in the most merciful administra- 
tion of which you need not expect anything less than death. 

99. Commodity, gain, advantage, as frequent in Shake- 
speare. 

101. I do . . . lost, I regard as lost. 

105. Starr'd . . . unluckily, born under a most unlucky star. 

107. Every post, every public notice-board. 

108-110. With immodest . . . fashion, with immoderate 
malice refused those privileges which are allowed to women of 
all ranks when in child-birth. 

112. Strength of limit, the limited degree of strength custom- 
ary for women to acquire before going abroad after child-bear- 
ing. 

116-120. But for . . . law. But as regards my honor, which 
I am anxious to free from stain, I tell you that if it shall turn 
out that I be condemned with no other proofs than those which 
your jealous fancies call into being, such condemnation is mere 
vengeful harshness and not law. 

154. To report it, for reporting it. 



172 NOTES. [act in. 

x 55» J 56. With mere . . . speed, at the mere idea and fear of 
the queen's evil plight; the old sense of sfleed was "help'' 
" success, 1 ' but like the latter word it was often qualified by 
"good," " evil.'" etc. 

164. Her heart . . . o'ercharged: it is merely excess of 
emotion that has caused her to faint. 

175. For the minister, as the agent. 

177, 178. Tardied . . . command, delayed the execution of 
the command which I desire to be so swiftly carried out. 

182. Unclasp'd my practice, revealed my plot. 

185. No richer . . . honor; having no other possession than 
his honor. 

189. My lace, the lacing of her stays. 

194. In leads or oils, cauldrons of molten lead or boiling oil. 

198. Fancies ... nine, in opposition to "jealousies"; 
fancies so baseless that even a boy would be ashamed to enter- 
tain them, nay, even girls of nine would regard them as absurd 
and childish. 

201. Spices of it, slight tastes of it, your jealousy. 

203. That did .. . ungrateful. Johnson explains this, "It 
showed thee first a fool, then inconstant and ungrateful." 

205. Thou wouldst . . . king. You wished to taint Camillo's 
honor in order that he might not hesitate to kill a king. 

209, 210. Though . . . done "t : though even a devil in the 
midst of the fire would have shed tears ere he would have done 
such a deed. 

216. Laid to thy answer; brought against you as a crime for 
which you will have to answer. 

217. When I have said, when I have spoken that which I 
have to speak. 

219. Not . . . yet, as we might have expected. Forbid, that 
she should be dead. 

223, Tincture . . . eye, color in her lip or brightness in her 
eye. 

229. Ten . . . together, during the space of, etc. Naked, fast- 
ing, though these knees that knelt were bare, and though the 
suppliants to whom they belonged were fasting all the time. 

230, 231. And still . . . perpetual, and though it were ever 
winter, and winter in a state of perpetual storm. 

232. To look . . . wert. Even to turn their eyes in your 
direction, much less to pardon you. 

238. Howe'er ... speech. Whatever may be the result, you 
are to blame for speaking so bitterly. 

252. Take your . . . nothing. Arm yourself with patience, 
and you shall hear no more reproaches from me. 

254-256. Thou didst . . . thee. You spoke nothing but what 






sc. ill.] NOTES, 173 



was well when most plainly you spoke out the truth ; and such 
plain speaking I can better brook than to be pitied by you. 
260. Our, speaking as a king. 



Scene III. 

1. Perfect, certain, well assured. 

12. Loud weather, stormy, boisterous. 

14. Keep, dwell. 

30. Became . . . spouts, burst forth in torrents of tears. 
The fury spent, her passionate outbreak being over. 

32. Better disposition, in opposition to the natural bent of 
your kindly nature. 

36. For the babe, since the babe is. For weep Dyce would 
read wend. 

. 37. Perdita, lost one. 
^ 39. Put on, enjoined thee. 

43-45. Dreams . . . this. Dreams are mere empty nothings, 
and yet for this once I will allow my belief to be shaped, guided 
by this one. Superstitiously, most religiously. 

50. Right, true. Blossom, fair floweret. 

51. Character, that which marks what you are — the writing 
afterwards discovered with Perdita. 

52. 53. Which may . . . thine. This (the bundle containing 
clothes and money which he lays down beside her) may serve 
for your maintenance and ever remain with you (possibly as 
marks of identification). 

60. A savage clamor, of the dogs and hunters pursuing the 
bear. 

61. "Well . . . aboard ! May I get safely aboard ! The chase, 
that which they are pursuing, the quarry. 

63-65. I would . . . rest. I wish there were no age between 
mere boyishness (ten years) and years of discretion (three and 
twenty), or that youths would sleep out the interval. 

65. In the between, in the intervening years. The an- 
cientry, the old folk, himself to wit. 

67. Any but these . . . brains, any but such addle-pated, 
scatter-brained youths. 

71. If anywhere I have them, if I am likely to find them 
anywhere, it will be by the seaside feeding upon the ivy 
bushes. 

74. Barne, another spelling of bairn, child. A boy or a 
child, " I am told that, in some of our inland counties, a female 
infant, in contradistinction to a male, one, is still termed, 
among the peasantry, — a child " (Steevens). 



174 NOTES. [act iv. 

81. When thou art . . . rotten, not merely during your 
life, but even after death, so wonderful is it. 

95. For the land-service, for what happened on shore. 

99. Flap-dragoned it, swallowed it as gallants in their revels 
swallow a flap-dragon. 

118. A bearing-cloth, the cloth or mantle in which the child 
was usually borne to the font at baptism. Squire's child, one 
of high degree. 

121. Changeling, a child left hy the fairies in the place of 
one they had carried off. One of the foremost dangers sup- 
posed to hover round the new-born infant was the propensity 
of witches and fairies to steal the most beautiful and well- 
favored children, and to leave in their places such as were ugly 
and stupid. 

123. A made old man, one whose fortune is made. 

124. You 're well to live, you have a happy life before you. 
128. The next way, the nearest way. 

134. Curst, savage. 

136. Mayest discern, canst discover. 

138. To the sight of him, to see him. 

139. Marry, a corruption of " by Mary," the Virgin Mary, 
for the sake of evading the statute against profane swearing. 



ACT IV. 
Prologue, 

4. To use my wings, to fly over a wide space of years. 

9-11. Let me pass . . . receiv'd. Receive me for the same 
that I was even before the most ancient order of things, or that 
which is now accepted among mankind. 

12. Them, the ancient order of things. 

13. Reigning, in vogue, in fashion. 

14. The glistering . . . present, the brand-new gloss of the 
present time. 

15. Now seems, i.e., stale. 

16. 17. And give . . . between, and represent to you such an 
altered state of things that you might imagine you had slept 
through the interval which must have elapsed. 

25. Equal with wondering, so as to be the matter for 
wonder. 

26. I list not, I do not care to, etc. 

28. And what . . . adheres, all that belongs to her, every- 
thing in her history. 

29. Argument, subject. Allow, approve, accept favorably. 



sc. ii.] NOTES. 175 

Scene I. 

2. 'T is a sickness . . . this. It is pain enough to deny you 
anything, but it will be much worse to grant this request of 
yours. 

9. Or I o'erween . . . so, if it is not presumption in me to 
think so. Which, i.e., the belief that I might be able to lighten 
his sorrow. 

19. Considered, in the way of reward. 

21, 22. My profit . . . friendships. I will for the future be 
more liberal of recompense ; as I confer favors on thee I shall 
increase the friendship between us. 

23-25. Whose very . . . penitent, for the very mention of it 
brings me bitter pain in the remembrance of, etc. 

30. Gracious, when the conduct of their children is not such 
as they can view with satisfaction. 

31. Approved, proved. 

37. Frequent to, addicted to, given to. 

44-46. That from . . . .estate. Who from the humblest 
position in lite, and to the utter astonishment of his neighbors, 
has grown to very great wealth. 

55. Question, conversation. 

59. The thoughts of Sicilia, of going there. 



Scene II. 

Stage Direction. Autolycus "was the son of Mercury, 
and as famous for all arts of fraud and thievery as his father" 
(Steevens). 

2. Doxy, the female companion of a tramp or beggar. 

4. For the red . . . pale. The red biood of spring reigns in 
the place of the pale blood of winter. 

7. Doth set . . . edge ; probably means sharpens my inclina- 
tion to steal ; pugging, generally explained as " thieving.' 1 

9. Tirra-lirra, an imitation of the notes of the lark. 

14. Three-pile, three-piled velvet, velvet of the richest and 
costliest kind. 

16-18. By the light of the pale moon I am able to carry on 
my petty thefts, and when I wander here and there (i.e., seem 
to be going wrong, to have lost my way), I am then going in 
what is the right path _/£>?■ me, i.e., I am most successful in my 
thieving. 

19—22. If tinkers ... it. If such fellows as tinkers are 
allowed to live and to wander about the country carrying with 
them their leathern sack, then there is no reason why I should 



176 NOTES. [act iv. 

not give an account of my occupation, or openly avow it when 
put in the stocks. 

23. My traffic . . . linen." When I am on the tramp, people 
may expect to have their sheets stolen, just as when the kite is 
building they may expect to have odd pieces of linen carried 
off if left on the drying lines after washing, or exposed any- 
where in the open air. He is the human kite that carries off 
anything that comes in his way. 

25. Littered under Mercury, born when the planet Mercury 
was in the ascendant ; he applies to himself the term {littered) 
which is technically used of puppies, and the young of wild 
beasts. 

27-30. Gallows . . . thought of it. "The resistance which 
a highwayman encounters in the fact, and the punishment 
which he suffers on detection, withhold me from daring rob- 
bery' 1 (Johnson); as for the future life, I don't allow any 
thoughts of it to trouble me. 

31. Every 'leven . . . tods. This has been rightly ex- 
pounded to mean that the wool of eleven sheep would weigh a 
tod, or 28 lb. Each fleece would, therefore, be 2 lb. 8 oz. w\ dr. 

34. If the springe . . . mind. If my device does not fail, I 
shall catch this fellow. 

36. Counters, small circular pieces of metal formerly used 
by the uneducated in all but the simplest calculations. 

38. Five pound, in cases of .time, distance, or weight, many 
substantives in A. S. in Shakespeare, and even with us, have 
the same form in the plural as in the singular. 

42. Three-man song-men, singers of catches in three parts. 

44. Means, " The mean in music was the intermediate pare 
between the tenor and the treble. Chappell's Pop. Mus. 0/ the 
Olden Time'''' (Dyce, Gloss.). 

47. Warden pies. Steevens says, " Wardens are a species 
of large pears . . . usually eaten roasted. 1 ' 

48. That 's out of my note, that is not mentioned in the 
memorandum she gave me. 

lb. Race, root. Raisins of the sun, dried in the sun. 

60. A million . . . matter, when you come to reckon it, a 
million of beating amounts to a good deal ; an adage worthy of 
Dogberry. 

67. He should be a footman, used in the contemptuous 
sense of a menial. 

69. It hath . . . service, it must have belonged to one who 
had seen very hot service in the wars. 

75. Kills my heart, utterly crushes me. 

90. Troll-my-dames. " The old English title of this game 
was pigeon-holes ; as the arches in the machine through which 



sc. in.] NOTES. 177 

the balls are rolled resemble the cavities made for pigeons in a 
dove -house' 1 '' (Steevens). 

96. And yet . . . abide. " Equivalent to — And yet it will 
barely, or with difficulty remain" (Staunton). 

99. Ape-bearer, one who goes about exhibiting monkeys. 

100. Compassed . . . Son, managed to set up a puppet show 
representing- the story of the Prodigal Son in the New Testa- 
ment. Motion, so called because the puppets were moved 
about at the will of the exhibitor. 

102. Land and living, land and property. 

103. Having flown over, having lightly passed over with- 
out remaining in any of them for more than a short time. 

106. Out upon him ! shame upon him. Prig, thief. 

107. Wakes. In days gone by, the church-wake was an im- 
portant institution, and was made the occasion for a thorough 
holiday. Each church, when consecrated, was dedicated to a 
saint, and on the anniversary of that day was kept the wake. 

114. 1 am false . . . way, my heart fails me in any matter of 
that kind. 

120. Bring thee on the way, conduct you. 

126. I '11 be with you, you '11 find me there plying my trade 
of pick-pocket. 

127. Cheat, piece of roguery. Bring out, lead up to, be the 
introduction to. 

128. Unrolled, struck off the roll of vagabonds, as though it 
were an honorable fraternity such as the Inns of Court, or the 
various trade guilds. 

131. Hent, take, in the sense of leaping over. 



Scene III. 

I. Weeds, dress. 

7. Your extremes, the extravagance of his conduct in ob- 
scuring himself in " a swain's wearing, 1 ' while he " pranked " 
her up " most goddess-like." 

9. The gracious . . . land, "The object of all men's notice- 
and expectation' 1 '' (Johnson). 

10. Wearing, dress. 

II. Prank'd up, decked out in a fanciful manner. 

11-13. But that . . . custom, if it were not that at each of 
the tables at our feasts some foolish jests and practices prevail,, 
which the feasters justify on the ground that such things are: 
customary, I should blush, etc. 

19. Cause, to bless the time, not to regret it. 



178 NOTES. [act iv. 

20, 21. To me . . . fear. To me the terrible difference of 
rank that there is between us causes fear. 

26. Borrow'd flaunts, borrowed finery. 

30. Humbling . . . love, divesting themselves of their divin- 
ity when under the power of love. 

47. Forc'd thoughts, far-fetched. 

48, 49. Or I '11 . . . father's. If I may be your husband, I will 
be my father's son ; if not, not. 

53. Strangle . . . while. Let the sights around you choke, 
kill, all such thoughts in your mind. 

55. Lift . . . countenance, look up cheerfully. 

62. And let 's . . . mirth. Let us enjoy ourselves till our 
cheeks become flushed with merriment. 

64. Pantler, the manager of the pantry, just a^ Sutler is 
one who attends to bottles. 

65. Dame, hostess, lady of the feast. 

68. On his . . . his, dancing first with one partner and then 
with another. 

69. The thing ... it, ale or beer, of which she would drink 
a small draught to each of her guests. 

70. 71. You are . . . one, you keep yourself in the back- 
ground as though you were a guest instead of the hostess. 

72. Bid . . . welcome, bid welcome to, make welcome, 
these unknown friends. 

78. As your . . . prosper, as you hope that your flocks may 
increase and multiply. 

83. Rosemary and rue. Rosemary was in high favor for 
its evergreen leaves, and its fine aromatic scent remaining a 
long time after picking. Rue was valued chiefly for its healing 
properties. 

92. Trembling winter, the epithet is a transferred one, and 
applies to the effect produced by winter. 

94. Nature's bastards, because of their pied color. 

99. For I have heard, etc. Because I have heard, etc. 
Perdita objects to the gilly-flower because being a cross be- 
tween the white and the red, it is not a pure flower. The art 
is simply the transmission of the pollen from one flower to an- 
other of different color ; which may either be done by the hand 
of man, or by nature, by means of the air, and by bees. There 
we have the whole theory of grafting clearly put by the pen 
of experience. 

104. But nature . . . mean ; except, unless, nature, etc. 

108, 109. And make . . . race, and cause a tree of inferior 
kind to conceive, become pregnant, by a bud of nobler stock ; 
dark, part for the whole, but with an allusion to the process 
of grafting by cutting into the bark. 

115. I '11 not put, etc. I have no more wish for such flowers 



sc. in.] . NOTES. 179 

than I have that I should be admired by this youth if I had 
painted my face ; and therefore I will take no means to rear 
them. 

116. Dibble, garden tool for making holes in the ground. 

120. Hot lavender, strongly smelling. 

121, 122. The marigold . . . weeping ; that closes its petals 
when the sun goes down, and opens them, wet with dew, as 
he rises ; " compounded of Mary and gold. 

131. Become . . . day, be suitable to your age ; she is ad- 
dressing a young girl. 

i34i I 3S- For the flowers . . . wagon ! Would that I had 
the flowers, etc. 

136. Take, captivate, conquer. 

137. Violets dim, dim serving to subordinate the colors to 
the perfume, and perhaps meaning " half -hidden from the eye," 
retiring, modest. 

138. 139. But sweeter . . . breath. Mason points out that 
" as Shakespeare joins in the comparison the breath of Cythe- 
rea with the eyelids of Juno, it is evident that he does not al- 
lude to the color, but to the fragrance, of violets. 11 

139-141. Pale primroses . . . strength. " The English Prim- 
rose is one of a large family of more than fifty species, repre- 
sented in England by the Primrose, the Oxlip, the Cowslip, 
and the Bird's-eye Primrose of the north of England and Scot- 
land 1 ' (Ellacombe, P. L.). That die, etc., i.e., before the sun 
acquires its full strength in the month of June. 

142. Bold oxlips. "... The oxlip has not a weak flexible 
stalk like the cowslip, but erects itself boldly in the face of the 
sun 11 (Steevens). Its scientific name is primula elatior. 

143, 144. Lilies . . . one ! This shows that Shakespeare, like 
many other contemporary writers, classed the " flower-de-luce 11 
among lilies, but the modern authorities seem to agree in pro 
nouncing it an iris. By some the word is said to be a corrup- 
tion oifleur de Louis, being spelt either fteur de-lys or fleur- 
de-lis. 

150. Quick, alive. 

152. Whitsun pastorals. " Apart from its observance as a 
religious festival, Whitsuntide was, in times past, celebrated 
with much ceremony. In the Catholic times of England, it 
was usual to dramatize the descent of the Holy Ghost, which 
this festival commemorates. For the history of the word 
Whitsunday , lit. White Sunday, see Skeat, Ety. Diet. 

153. Does . . . disposition, the wearing of this robe has 
changed my nature and inspired me with ideas I never had 
before. 

155. Still betters, ever improves. 

158, 159. And for . . . too : in the arranging, disposing, oi 



180 NOTES. [act iv. 

your affairs I could wish that your directions were given in 
song. 

161. Still, ever. 

162. And own . . . function, and give yourself no other oc- 
cupation. 

162, 165. Each your . . . queens. Each movement of yours, 
every trait of manner, so unique of its kind, so individual to 
yourself, that all your acts are queens, sovereign in nature, 
supreme in excellence. 

167. Large, liberal, exaggerated. 

169. Give you out, shows you to be. 

173, 174. As little ... to 't. As little reason to fear my in- 
tentions as I have purpose to compel you to that feeling 
(fear). 

177. I '11 swear for 'em. I wiii answer for the constancy ol 
turtles like ourselves. 

183, 184. That makes . . . cream. That causes the blood to 
flush up in her cheeks ; in plain truth she is the very queen of 
milk-maids. 

186, 187. Marry . . . with ! you will need to fill your mouth 
with garlic to endure her breath when you kiss her. 

188. Now, in good time ! used here by Mopsa in much in- 
dignation at Dorcas 1 unkind reflection upon her. 

189. We stand . . . manners : we must have no quarreling 
now, we are bound to behave well. 

193, 194. And boasts . . . feeding : and he declares that he 
owns a valuable tract of pasturage. But I have it ... it, I 
have it merely on his own report, yet I believe it. 

196. Like sooth, like one who may well be believed. 

197, 198. For never . . . eyes ; for never did the moon look 
down upon the water with a gaze so fixed and steadfast as his 
when he stands reading my daughter's soul through her eyes. 

202. Featly, gracefully. 

205. Do light upon her, manage to get her as his wife. 

206. Which ... of, unexpected wealth ; though probably 
the old shepherd has a secondary reference to Perdita's being 
sprung of a nobler family than his own. 

2ii. You '11 tell, you can count. As he had, as though he 
had. 

214. He could . . . better, he could never come at a more 
opportune moment. 

219. Of all sizes, as though he were talking of fitting a per- 
son with a garment, he goes on immediately to speak of a 
milliner fitting his customers with gloves. Milliner : in 
Shakespeare's time milliners were men ; the word is sup- 
posed to come from Miian, in Italy, famous in early days for 
its small wares, milliner signifying a seller of such wares. 



sc. in.] NOTES. 1S1 

222. Dildos and fadings. The commentators quote songs in 
which " dildo' 1 is the burden, or refrain; and passages from 
Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Shirley to show 
that a " fading " was an Irish jig. 

223-225. And where . . . matter, and where some wide- 
mouthed (licentiously-spoken) fellow would try to break in 
with some indelicate jest, etc. " Gap " here means parenthesis, 
and is in keeping with " break into.' 1 

228. Do me no harm. This was the name of an old song. 
Slights him, puts him off in a contemptuous manner. 

229. Brave fellow, fine fellow. 

230. Admirable conceited, a man of fine fancies, conceits. 

231. Unbraided wares, various meanings have been given 
to the word, e.g., " anything besides laces which were braided,' 1 
"wares not ornamented with braid, 1 ' "smooth and plain 
goods, not twisted into braids, 1 ' " things not braided but 
woven.' 1 

233. Points, with a quibble upon the word in the sense of 
tags (used to fasten the hose or breeches to the doublet, but 
sometimes serving merely for ornament, like the '• frogs " 
on military uniforms in the present day), and legal points, 
knotty points of law. 

235. By the gross, a gross is twelve score. Inkles, " a kind 
of inferior tape." Caddis, "worsted ribbon or galloon" 
(Dyce, Gloss.). 

244, 245. You have . . . sister. You will find among these 
pedlers some that have more in them than you would expect. 

245. Or go about to think, or take the trouble to imagine. 

248. Cyprus, " a fine transparent stuff, similar to crape, 
either white or black, but more commonly the latter." 

249. Gloves . . . roses. Presents of scented gloves were 
common in eld days. 

251. Bugle bracelet, made of bugles, elongated heads of 
black or colored glass ; they may be seen nowadays in great 
profusion on ladies' dresses, shoes, bonnets, etc. 

Id. Necklace amber, amber beads for necklaces, another 
modern fashion. 

253. Quoifs and stomachers, the former are caps, the latter, 
decorations of the lower pant of the " body " of a lady's dress 
ending in a point. Golden here means ornamented with gold. 

255. Poking sticks, made of steel, iron, or brass, were used 
when heated to iron cut the plaits in ruffs, frills, etc. 

260-262. But being . . . gloves, but being thus a bond slave 
to love, my condition will also involve my bringing into bond- 
age, taking captive (buying) certain, etc. 

263. Against this feast, in anticipation of, in preparation 
for. 



182 NOTES. [act iv. 



270, 271. Will they wear . . . faces ? Will they openly show- 
to strangers what they ought to keep for their friends ? 

272. Kiln-hole. Skeat (Ety. Diet.) explains "kiln 1 ' as a 
large oven for drying corn, bricks, etc. ; . . . from " A. S. cyln, 
a drying house. . . . Merely borrowed from Latin culina, 
kitchen ; whence the sense was easily transferred to that of 
'drying-house. 1 " 

274. 'T is well . . . whispering, it is a good thing that they 
are too much engaged in discussing their own affairs to hear 
these recriminations of yours. 

276. Clammer your tongues. Mr. Joseph Crosby writes to 
Mr. Henry Hudson : It [clammer] is a pure North-of-England 
provincialism. The original word clam or clamm means to 
choke, to stick or fasten togetner. I have heard the expres- 
sion, The mill is clammed, i.e., stopped, because the race, the 
stream of water driving it, is choked up. 

278. A tawdry lace, " tawdry " is a corruption of St. Awdry, 
which again is a corruption of Ethelreda; and a " tawdry 
lace," i.e., necklace, was so called as being bought at St. Aw- 
dry's fair. 

286. Parcels of charge, valuable parcels. 

289. O' life, on my life, by my life. 

292. Carbonadoed, cut into slices and broiled. 

298. Anon, immediately ; A. S. on an, on in the sense of 11 
and an old form of one. 

316. "Westward, in the west country, the west of England, 
for Shakespeare is thinking of his own country and its customs. 

328. Grange. Granges were the chief farm-houses of 
wealthy proprietors. 

334. We '11 have this song out, will sing it right through. 

335. In sad talk, serious, as frequent in Shakespeare. 

349. Utters, a legal term for " sells by retail." 

350. Is, on the singular form for the plural at the beginning- 
of a sentence, see Abb. § 335. 

353. Saltiers, the clown's corruption of satyrs. 

354. Gallimaufry, " a strange medley, a confused jumble, a 
hotch-potch " (Fr. gallimafree) (Dyce, Gloss.). 

358. That know . . . bowling, to over-refined persons ; an 
allusion to the smooth lawns on which bowls were played. 

362. You weary ... us ; the actors whom the old shepherd is 
hindering from performing their pastoral play. 

365-367. Not the worst . . . squier. And even the least agile 
of the three can jump twelve feet and a half by the measure ; 
squier, rule or measure, Fr. esquierre. 

372. O, father . . . hereafter. You '11 hear more about this 



sc. in.] NOTES. 183 

matter, the intimacy between Perdita and Florizel, hereaf- 
ter. 
374. Tells much, speaks out his whole mind. 

381. Marted, bargained for. 

382. Interpretation should abuse, if she should be inclined 
to put a wrong interpretation upon your conduct in not offer- 
ing her any presents. 

383. You were straited, you would be placed in a difficulty 
how to answer her. 

384. 385. If you make . . . her. At least if you attach im- 
portance to making her happy. 

396. What follows this ? To what declaration is this a pre- 
lude ? 

398. The hand was, etc., on the omission of the relative, see 
Abb. § 244. 

406. Thereof most worthy, and most worthy of being so 
crowned. 

407. That ever , . . swerve. That ever caused women to 
turn their eyes to look at him. 

409. For her employ, would employ. 

418. By the pattern . . . his. By the unsullied nature of my 
own thoughts I estimate his. 

425. O, that . . . daughter. If her portion is to be equal to 
mine, it can only be so by reason of her great virtue, for. in the 
matter of worldly wealth, I shall, when one (my father) is dead, 
have more than you can even dream of now. 

428. Contract . . . witnesses. The ceremony of betrothal 
apparently was as a rule performed in the presence of a priest, 
but from this passage it seems to have been valid if witnesses 
of any kind were present. 

433. But what of him ? What has he to do with the mat- 

439, 440. Incapable . . . affairs, incapable of taking part in 
matters in which reason and judgment are required. 

441. Altering rheums, rheumatic affections which have 
changed and disabled him. 

442. Dispute . . . estate, reason upon his own affairs. 

443. Lies he not bed-rid. " A.S. bed, a bed, and ridda, a 
knight, a rider ; thus the sense is a bed-rider, a sarcastic term 
for a disabled man " (Skeat, Ety. Diet.). 

450. Reason . . . wife, it is reasonable that my son, etc. 

453. Should . . . counsel, should be called in to give his ad- 
vice in the matter. 

457. I not acquaint, I do not choose to tell him. 

460, 464. He shall not . . . choice, he will not have any rea- 
son to regret the choice you have made. 

468. I dare not call, I am ashamed to call. 

470. That thus . . . sheep-hook ! That desirest to marry the 



1 84 NOTES. [act iv. 

daughter of a shepherd ; sheep-hook, the crook carried by shep- 
herds to extricate sheep when they get into a place from 
which without help they cannot get out ; the emblem of his 
occupation for the man himself. 

472. One week, but a very short time, he being already so 
near death. 

472,473. Fresh . . . witchcraft, opposed to "old traitor"; 
you so young and fair, and yet so full of trickery ; witchcraft 
has here the double sense of that which is enchanting, be- 
witching, and that which exercises the evil influence ascribed 
to witches. 

474. Thou copest with, have to do with, deal with. 

482. Far than, I will not admit that you are so far akin as 
to be sprung from the common ancestors of all mankind. 
Skeat points out that the forms farther and farthest are due 
to confusion with further and furthest, the comparative and 
superlative of fore. Shakespeare uses this contracted form 
(far) of the comparative as he uses " near " for '"nearer. 1 ' 

485. From the dead . . . it, deadly, if the reading is sound, 
but " dread " would be more like Shakespeare. Enchantment, 
personified. 

486, 488. Yea, him too . . . thee, yea, worthy too of him who 
(if the honor of my family were not concerned therein) shows 
himself unworthy of you. 

492. As thou ... to 't, as thou art unfit from your tender age 
to suffer such a fate. 

499. I told you . . . this ; what would be the result of our 
love-making. 

501. I '11 queen . . . farther, I '11 play the part of queen not a 
moment longe" on it indefinite see Abb. § 226. 

513, 514. Anc "ould'st . . . him. And still, in spite of that 
knowledge, dared to plight your faith to him. 

518. Delay'd, hindered for a time from carrying out my pur- 
pose. 

520. More straining . . . unwillingly. Like a greyhound 
that has caught sight of the hare but is held back by the game- 
keeper, I only struggle the harder to get free from the leash. 

534. But till . . . known ! Only till it became known what 
our relations to each other were. 

535. But by . . . faith ; except by my breaking my promise. 
540. I am heir . . . affection. All the inheritance I covet is 

that of my love. 

542. Fancy, love, as frequent in Shakespeare. 

547. But it does . . . vow : Staunton says that as is to be un- 
derstood between but and it. 

551. Close earth, secret, as if unwilling to give up her 
treasures. 



sc. ill.] NOTES. 185 

556. Cast your, "etc., so as to allay his passion. The idea is 
that of casting oil on the troubled waters. 

558. Tug, one against the other. 

564,565. Shall nothing . . . reporting. It will not do you 
any good to know, nor do I care to tell you. 

573. To serve my turn, to suit my own purposes. 

575. Purchase, as being something of great value to him. 

579. Fraught, laden with, burdened with, like a ship with its 
cargo on board,. Curious, needing all care. 
1 582,583. You have . ... father ? He is referring rather to his 
helping Polixenes to escape from Sicily than to services ren- 
dered since. 

587. To have . . . thought on. To reward them in a degree 
adequate to his appreciation of them. 

591. Embrace . . . direction : accept the advice I give you, 

594. Receiving, entertainment. 

598. As heavens forfend ! which heaven forbid ! 

600. Your discontenting .. . liking. Malone explains; 
*' And where you may, by letters, intreaties, etc., endeavor to 
soften your incensed father and reconcile him to the match; to 
effect which my best services shall not be wanting in your ab- 
sence. 1 " Rowe proposed to insert / 7/, Hanmer, I will, before 
strive. Such insertion seems necessary, for one can hardly be- 
lieve it is Florizel who is to strive to ''qualify" his father's 
wrath. Discontenting, discontented, but with a stronger 
sense than we give that word now : in " bring him up to." the 
idea probably is that of screwing an instrument up to a certain 
pitch. 

605. And after ... to thee, and besides that, etc. 

609. But as . . . do, but as the sudden accident of the dis- 
covery made by Polixenes has to answer for what we rashly 
are about to do, etc. 

611. Ourselves . . . chance, " As chance has driven me to 
these extremities, so I commit myself to chance, to be con- 
ducted through them" (Johnson). 

602. Opening his . . . arms, opening his arms to embrace her 
heartily. 

621. Ask thee ... person, asks of thee forgiveness, as though 
he were asking your father (of whom it was needed). 

623-626. O'er and o'er ... time. His talk is divided between 
two subjects, his unkindness formerly shown to your father, 
and the kindness he now feels towards him and you ; the for- 
mer he banishes with execrations to hell, the latter he desires 
may grow with a speed greater than that of thought, or of 
swiftly fleeting time. 

628, 629. What color . . . him ? What pretext shall I make 



186 NOTES. [act iv., 

for thus visiting him ? There may be an idea of a ship hoisting 
its colors as a signal. 

630. Sent by, etc., you will pretend that, etc. Comforts, 
comfortable assurances. 

635. Point you forth, indicate to you. Every sitting, on 
each occasion that he gives you audience. 

637. But that you have, that you have not. Bosom, his 
inmost thoughts. 

640. Some sap, some life, some virtue. 

643. Unpath'd, not before sailed over, or the dangers of 
which are laid down in no chart. 

644. Most certain . . . enough, the only thing certain in your 
voyage being that you will meet with abundance of troubles. 

645. Shake off one, get free from one misery. 

646. Nothing so certain, by no means so certain. 
646-648. Who do ... to be, which do their duty most truly 

when they hold fast on being thrown out, though whenever 
they are thrown out and do so hold fast, they will only be de- 
taining you where you will be unwilling to stay, all places 
having become hateful to you. 

649. Prosperity . . . alters. Prosperity is the very security 
of love, the freshness of whose complexion and heart is quickly 
changed by affliction. 

654. Take in, conquer, subdue, as frequent in Shakespeare. 

656. These seven years, for many years to come ; indefinite. 

660. She is i' the rear our birth. Some editors insert the 
preposition of before our, Grant White writing it y only. Even 
if the preposition be omitted altogether, the ellipse, though 
somewhat harsh, is intelligible ; she is as forward in respect to 
education and manners, as she is backward in respect to birth 
compared to me. 

665. I '11 blush you thanks, I "ll pay my thanks in blushes. 

66g. How shall we do ? We should say either, " What shall 
we do ?" or, " How shall we act ?" 

674. There, i.e., in Sicily. 

675. Appointed, fitted out, equipped. 

676. As if... mine. As if you were playing a part written by 
me and for which therefore it would be only fair that I should 
furnish you with the requisite properties. 

680. My trumpery, my worthless goods. Fr. tromfier, to 
deceive. 

63i. Pomander, " a little ball made of perfumes, and worn in 
the pocket, or about the neck to prevent infection in times of 
plague" (Grey). Table-book, tablets, memorandum-book. 

683. To keep . . . fasting; the stomach of his pack was quite 
empty. 

£85. As if ... hallowed. An allusion to the relics of saints, 



sc. in.] NOTES. 187 

etc., believed to possess some virtue against disease, 
etc. 

687. Best in picture, best to look at, fullest. 

689. 'Wants but something, wits, sense, in order to become 
a reasonable man. 

691. Stir his pettitoes, move an inch ; properly used of the 
feet of pigs when cut off to be cooked and eaten. 

693. All their . . . ears, they seemed to have lost all their 
senses but that of hearing. 

695. My sir's song, my gentleman's, that fine fellow, the 
clown. The nothing of it, its empty nonsense. 

697. Lethargy, of all their senses except that of hearing. 

699. Whoo-bub, outcry, noise ; the ordinary modern spell- 
ing is "hubbub,' 1 as whooping-cough is sometimes spelt " hoop- 
ing-cough." 

700. My choughs, these idiots who were as eager after my 
worthless wares as choughs after chaff. The whole army, as 
we often say, u the whole host." 

712. "Why, hanging, that is the mildest punishment I can 
expect. 

718, 719. Yet . . . exchange ; yet in regard to the outward 
symbols of your poverty, viz., your dress, we must compel you 
to make an exchange with us. 

721. disease thee, undress. 

723, 724. Though the . . . boot. Though in the value of the 
clothes he is already a loser by the bargain, yet here is some- 
thing in addition for you ; saying which Camillo gives him 
money. 

728. Half flayed already, already half undressed. 

732. Indeed . . . earnest. You have indeed already given 
me something in advance, but I am almost ashamed to take it. 

735? 736- Let my ... ye ! may the prophecy I have just 
uttered, viz., " fortunate mistress !" prove a true one. 

739) 74°- Dismantle . . . seeming ; strip yourself of your 
holiday garment, and make yourself as unlike yourself as 
possible. 

741. For I . . . over. This is explained by Grant White to 
mean " over-seeing eyes." 

743. I see . . . part, I see that, as circumstances are, I must 
take a part in the play that is being performed. 

746. Have you . . . there ? said to Florizel, have you com- 
pleted the exchange of dresses ? 

752. 'What have . . . forgot ! we have forgotten something 
of importance ; they then whispei aside. 

758. Review, see again. 

758. A woman's longing. That eager desire which preg- 1 
nant women feel for different kinds of food. 



1 88 NOTES. [aci iv. 

768. 'What an exchange . . . boot ! even without the money 
given in addition this exchange would have been a great bar- 
gain. 

771. Extempore, without any previous meditation, design. 

773. Clog, the same uncomplimentary term is applied by 
Bertram to Helena, A. W. ii. 5. 58. 

778. Hot brain, quick, eager. 

779. Session, sitting of a court of justice, assize. Yields, 
. . . work, yields opportunities for one so industrious in his 
profession as myself. 

792. Let the law go whistle : you can afford to laugh at 
the law. 

796. To go about, to have the intention of, etc. 

800. I know how much. Hanmer inserts tz^ after " know," 
which in modern phraseology would be necessary in order to 
give that indefinite sense which is here intended. 

804. Fardel, bundle. 

810. Excrement, his beard ; the word was used of anything 
thai grew out of the body, e.g., hair, nails of the hand, etc. 

816. Of what having, what your property, possessions. Dis- 
cover, reveal. 

819. Plain fellow, simple, humble. 

822. And they often . . . lie. " To give a person the lie' 1 is 
ordinarily to accuse him of lying. But the words " let me have 
no lying" show that here " give us the lie" means " lie to us," 
and the braggadocio Autolycus certainly would not confess 
that tradesmen accuse " us soldiers" of lying. In any case 
Autholycus 1 play upon the words is the same — that as they 
were paid for giving the lie, they could not strictly speaking 
be said to give the lie. If the order of the words is right here, 
" not stabbing steel" probably means " not, as might be ex- 
pected of us, with stabbing steel." It looks, however, as if the 
words "stamped coin" and "stabbing steel" had been trans- 
posed. 

826. If you . . . manner. "To be taken with the manner" 
is a law-term meaning "to be caught in the fact." But the 
clown's words are by no means clear. He would scarcely dare 
to charge Autolycus with having been about to lie to them i' 
he had not caught himself in the act. " To have given us one'f 
must therefore mean " to have charged us with lying," and " if 
you . . . manner" may mean, " if you had not arrested your- 
self in the act of doing so, and taken the sting out of the 'lie 
direct' by the remainder of your speech." 

831. Enfoldings, garments, an affectation used in order to 
impress his simple hearers. 

835. Insinuate or toaze, " toaze," " toze" and " touse" 
seem to be only varieties of " tease," to card or comb wool ; 



sc. in.] NOTES. 189 

do you think because I wind myself into your business or 
pluck it from you that, etc. 

836. Cap-a-pe, from head to foot. 

843. Court- word . . . pheasant, Malone would read "pres- 
ent" ; and it seems more likely that the old shepherd should 
have misheard the word than that the clown should have so 
interpreted " advocate." According to Steevens the clown 
supposes his father, as being a suitor from the country, should 
have brought a present of game, a form of bribery which Reed 
says was commonly employed. 

853. 1 know by . . . teeth. Toothpicks were introduced 
from the continent, and were regarded as one of the marks of 
a traveled man of fashion. 

861. Age, old man, abstract for concrete. 

869. Hand-fast. "In custody (properly, in mainprise, in 
the custody of a friend on security given for appearance)' 7 
(Dyce. Gloss.). 

876. Germane . . . times, related to him however remote the 
relationship. 

878, 880. An old . . . grace ! To think that an old wretch of 
a shepherd should have the presumption to jdream of making 
such a grand marriage ! Sheep-whistling, who tends sheep, 
though it is the dogs not the sheep that obey the call of the 
whistle. 

885, 886. Has the old ... sir ? Said in order to ascertain 
what punishment awaited himself. 

892. Prognostication, the almanac. " Almanacks were in 
Shakespeare's time published under this title : ' An almanack 
and Prognostication made of the year of our Lord, 1595' " 
(Malone). 

895. He is to behold him, where the sun will beat upon 
him from the south and behold him befouled by the flies till 
he expires. 

899. What have . . . king, what business with him. 

900. Being . . . considered, if you make me a suitable pres 
ent. 

901. Tender your persons, offer, present, your persons, in- 
troduce you. 

905. Close with him, accept his offer. 

907. Led by the nose, g-ulled, but also with a reference to 
the way in which bears were led. 

909. No more ado, make no more fuss about it, don't hesi- 
tate. 

917. Moiety, here in its literal sense, half; Lat. medietas. 

919. Though my case, etc. " Case" is used first in the sense 
of position, circumstances, and secondly for body. 

922. O, that 's, etc. Autolycus still pretends not to know 



190 NOTES. [act v. 

who the clown is, and says, " O, that 's only what is to be 
done to the clown, don't bother yourself about his fate.' 1 

924. Comfort, good comfort ! May we have good comfort. 
Dyce marks this as an " aside" to the shepherd. The clown 
may perhaps also mean that it is a pretty kind of comfort that 
Autolycus offers them. 

940. Courted, by Fortune, who seems to be in love with 
me. 

943. Turn back . . . advancement, in return for my doing 
the prince good, I shall probably derive advantage myself. 

944. Aboard h m, aboard the ship on which he is. To shore 
them again, to land them, put them on shore, again. 

946. The complaint, etc., of Florizers having resisted them. 
Concerns him nothing, is of no importance to him. 

950. Matter in it, something important, or of advantage, 
may result from it. 



ACT V. 

Scene I. 

6. "With them, like them. 

c. My ... them, my faults in regard to them. 

id. The wrong, the injury. 

21, 22. It is as bitter ... thought. The woid " kiU'd 1 ' 
comes to me -with as bitter pain from your mouth as the 
thought in my mind that I did kill her. 

25-27. That would . . . better, which would have been more 
suitable to the time and would have exhibited your kindness 
-more gracefully. 

31, 32. Nor the . . . name, the perpetuation of his name in 
the person of an heir. 

34, 35. May drop . . . on, may fall (like a pestilence) and 
destroy the bystanders, who will be paralyzed by the anarchy 
likely to ensue. 

36. Is well, is at rest, happy in another world. 

37. Royalty's repair, the renovation of royalty. 

42. Respecting . . . gone, looking back to her who is gone. 

43. Will . . . fulfilled, are determined that their secret pur- 
poses shall be fulfilled. 

47. 'Which, etc., and that it shall be found is as, etc. 
55. So his successor, in that way his successor was likely, 
etc. 

60. Had squared . . . counsel ! had acted in accordance with. 
70. 'Why to me? Why do you show to me a successor tc 



sc. i.l 



NOTES. I91 



my rights, and one whom you treat better than you treated 
me? 

73. She had, she would have. 

77. 'What dull ... in % what you saw in an eye so dull (com- 
pared to mine) to admire. 

78,79. That even. . . me, that even ears like yours, so un- 
feeling, should be split by my words. 

91. Affront, confront, meet. 

95. No remedy . . . will, nothing being able to stop your 
doing so. 

no. Like to . . . greatness, in a manner worthy of a king s 
son. 

in. So . . . circumstance. Without ceremony. 

112. Fram'd, designed, premeditated. 

121. Above a . . .gone, as being superior to abetter time that 

is past. 

121 122. So must . . . now! So must you, now that you are 
dead,' endure to be depreciated in comparison with what is 
living 

124. Is colder . . . theme, " than the lifeless body of Her- 
mione, the theme or subject of your writing" (Malone). 

135. Not women ? Surely you do not mean that women 
would be her proselytes ? 

148. He dies ... of, when his name is mentioned, all the 
bitter sorrow I felt at his death is revived in me. 

164-166. Whom . . . him. For the supplementary pronoun, 
see Abb. 249 ; although my life is burdened with woe, still I 
desire that it may be prolonged so that I may once more see, etc. 

179-181. And these . . . slackness. And these acts of good 
will on your part, of such rare kindness, only make clear to me 
the remissness of my behavior in not having before confessed 
my fault and asked your pardon. 

183. Paragon, " a model of excellence ... A singular word, 
owing its origin to two prepositions united in a phrase. Span. 
para, for, to, towards, itself a compound prep, answering to 
O. Span, pora, from Lat. pro, ad (see Diez) ; and con, with, 
from Lat. cum, with. Thus it is really equivalent to the three 
Lat. prepositions pro, ad, cum'''' .(Skeat, Ety. Diet.). 

191, 192. Wh ose daughter . . . her ; whom his tears (the 
sincerity of his grief) when he was parting from her showed 
beyond all doubt to be his daughter. 

195. For visiting, to visit. 

203. Do climate here, remain under our skies. 

206. Taking . . . note, wrathfully bearing in mind. 

216. Attach, lay hands upon. 

233, 223. I speak . . . message. I speak in a confused 



ig2 NOT£S. [act v. 

way, but it, my manner of speech, is in keeping with the aston- 
ishment I feel, and the message I bring. 

231. Endur'd all weathers, been proof against all attacks. 
Lay . . . charge, tell him so plainly, for you will have the op- 
portunity in a few minutes. 

236. Has there . . . question, is now in conversation with 
the .shepherd and his son. . 

243. Our contract celebrated, it had already been once in- 
terrupted, and she fears that the heavens are determined it 
shall never be ratified. 

245. We are not . . . alike. We are not married, nor are 
we even likely to be so ; the stars will descend from their place 
in the sky and kiss the valleys sooner than fate will allow our 
marriage-contract to be complete. The chances of good luck 
are the same for the high-born as for the humble, the fact of 
my being a king's son does not necessarily cause fortune to 
favor me. 

256. Worth, here = high birth. 

259. Visible an enemy, who is so clearly hostile to us. 

262. Owed . . . time, were no greater a debtor in point of 
years, were no older. 

265. As trifles, as though they were trifles. 

269. Your eye ... in 't. You look upon her too much with 
the admiration of youth. Such gazes, such admiring looks. 

278. Mark what . . . make, see what effect my pleading may 
have upon him and act accordingly. 



Scene II. 

2. This relation, the narration of this story. 

5. After a . . . amazedness, at first the king and Camillo were 
so amazed at the story that no notice was taken of us, but after 
a little time we were all ordered to leave the room. 

10. Broken delivery, disconnected. 

12. Were very . . . admiration, betokened the greatest as- 
tonishment. 

14. Cases, sockets. 

17-21. A notable . . . needs be ; they were evidently strongly 
moved by wonder, but no one, however wise, without further 
guide than his eye, could tell whether their behavior indicated 
joy or sorrow, though it was evident that one of these two feel- 
ings had been excited in the strongest degree possible. 

28. That ballad-makers ... it. That even the ingenuity of 
ballad-makers would find it difficult to relate the circumstances. 

35. Pregnant, clear, evident, full of proof, convincing. 



sc. ii.] NOTES. 193 

41. Affection of nobleness, the natural instinct of nobleness 
so much above what could be expected of her bringing up. 

48. Cannot be spoken of, which no words could worthily 
describe. 

50, 51. That it seemed . . /of them, the various successive 
phases of joy were so exquisite that it seemed as if sorrow wept 
at having to part with them. 

56. Joy of . . . daughter, joy derived from the finding of his 
daughter. 

57. As if that . . . loss, as if that joy were now turned into 
sorrow by the reminiscences it called up. 

60. Clipping her, embracing her. 

62. Weather-bitten, eaten away, corroded by changes of 
temperature, storms, etc. 

64. Undoes ... do it, beggars description to portray it. 

68-70. "Which will .. . open. Like one of those old fabulous 
stories which are always ready to be rehearsed by gossips even 
though no one will believe them, or even listen to them. 

97. How attentiveness . . . daughter, how, as she listened 
attentively to her fathers story, her heart was wrung. 

98. From one sign, etc., passing from one manifestation of 
grief to another. With an "Alas," with the utterance of 
the one word Alas ! 

101. Who was . . . marble, the most hard-hearted of those 
present. 

no. Julio Romano, a famous Italian painter, born a.d. 1492, 
died a.d. 1546. 

112. Custom, trade. 

lb. Ape, imitator. 

122. Piece the rejoicing, make complete. 

126. Unthrifty . . . knowledge, carelessly omitting to store 
up what we might for our knowledge. 

137. It would . . . discredits. If I had found out this secret 
and been the first to communicate it, my doing so would not 
have found favor in their eyes in the midst of my many and 
notorious evil doings. 

167. Preposterous, for " prosperous. 11 

181. Franklins. "Franklin is a freeholder, or yeoman, a 
man above a villain, but not a. gentleman*'' (Johnson). 

185. Tall fellow . . . hands, stout, brave. 

192-194. If I do not. . . me not. I assure you it astonishes 
me immensely that you, not being a tall fellow, should venture 
to be drunk. 

197. We '11 be . . . masters. " The Clown conceits himself 
already a man of consequence at court. It was the fashion for 
an inferior, or suitor, to beg of the great man, after his humble 
commendations, that he would be good master to him. Thus 



194 NO TES. [act v. 

Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, when in prison, in a letter to 
Cromwell to relieve his want of clothing : ' Furthermore, I 
beseeche you to be gode master unto one in my necessities ' " 
(Whalley). 



Scene III. 

5. Paid home, thoroughly paid. 

11. We honor . . . trouble. You speak of the honor we do 
you, but that honor is one that brings trouble with it. 

13, 14. Not without . . . singularities, not without great 
admiration of the many rare works of art it contains. 

22. As lively mock'd, imitated to the life as perfectly as 
sleep imitates death. 

26. Comes . . . near ? Is it not a fairly good likeness ? 

38-40. As now . . . soul. Which she might have done (z. <?., 
have lived), and been to me as great a source of comfort now 
in living as in being dead she is a source of anguish. 

41. Life of majesty, in all the majesty of warm life. 

48. Standing . . . thee, now herself more like stone than 
flesh and blood. 

57. Too sore laid on, too thickly laid on. 

63-65. Let him . . .himself. Let him (myself ) who was the 
cause of this have%the power by his sympathy to divert upon 
himself so much of the grief as he may justly make his own. 

80. The fixure ... in 't. Though the eye, as the eye of a 
statue, is necessarily fixed, yet it seems to have motion. 

83. Transported, carried out of himself, ravished with 
wonder. 

87, 88. No settled . . . madness. No sanity however per- 
fect could rival in its sweetness such insanity. 

94» 95- What fine . . . breath ? a question of appeal equiva- 
lent to *« No chisel, however fine, could so cut marble as to 
represent breath." 

105. Presently, at once. Resolve you, be prepared for. 

115- It is . . . faith. I call upon you to arouse to the utmost 
your powers of belief. 

117. Or, this is usually accepted for on as given by the folios. 
If, with the Camb. Ed., on be retained, the meaning will be, 
" Forward." 

125, 126. Bequeath . . . you. Leave to death that numbness 
which you have simulated up to this moment, for the dear life, 
to which you now return in your reconciliation with your hus- 
band, redeems you from death. 

130. You kill her double, by shunning her now you will 
kill her a second time. 



sc. in.] NOTES. 195 

138. If she . . . life, if she has relationship with life ; if she 
and life have anything to do with each other. 

145. Please . . . madam : be pleased to come and stand be- 
tween Hermione and Leontes ; madam is generally and more 
properly used of a married woman. 

156-158. There 's . . . relation. There will be time enough 
for that hereafter ; for if you begin to listen to that story, all 
the rest may wish, the impulse being once given, to weary you 
with similar stories. 

166, 167. This is . . vows. This is an agreement made be- 
tween us, and ratified by oath. 

168. Is questioned. i s what I must extract from you by 
questions. 

176. "What ! . . brother. " This unfolds a charming and 
delicate trait of action in Hermione ; remembering how sixteen 
sad years agone her innocent freedom with Polixenes had been 
misconstrued, and keenly sensible, even amidst the joy of her 
present restoration to child and husband, of the bitter penalty 
they had involved, she now turns from him, when they meet, 
with feelings of mingled modesty and apprehension" (Staun- 
ton), 

179. Heavens directing, heaven having wished it. 



A Text-Book on English Literature, 

Vith copious extracts from the leading authors, English 
and .American. With full Instructions as to tli3 
Method in which these are to be studied. Adapted 
for use in Colleges, High Schools, Academies, etc. By 
Bkalnerd Kellogg, A.M., Professor of the English 
Language and Literature in the Brooklyn Collegiate 
and Polytechnic Institute, Author of a " Text-Book 01 
Rhetoric," and one of the Authors of Reed & Kellogg't 
" Graded Lessons in English," and "Higher Lessons 
in English." Handsomely printed. 12mo. ^8 pp. 
'jtVje Book is divided into the following Periods : 

Period I. — Before the Norman Conquest, 670--J66. Period 
ti —From the Conquest to Chaucer's death, 1066-1400. Period III 
-From Chaucer's death to Elizabeth, 1400-1558. Period IV- 
jcaizabeth's reign, 1558-1603. Period V.— From Elizabeth's deatu 
to the Restoration, 1603-1660. Period VI.— From the Restoration 
to Swift's death, 1660-1745. Period VII.— From Swift's death to 
thi French Revolution, 1745-1789. ^eriod VILL— From the 
French Revolution, 1789 ; onwards. 

Each Period is preceded by a Lesson containing a brief re- 
?une of the great historical events that hp^e haa somewhat to 
*G in shaping or in coloring the literature or that period. 

Extracts, as many and as ample as the limits of a text-booi 
wculd allow, have been made from the principal writers of eacL 
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their authors, both in thought and expression, and but few o/ 
these extracts have ever seen the light in books of selections- 
none of them have been worn threadbare by use, or have lost 
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readers. 

It teaches the pupil how the selections are to be studied, 
jsoJciting and exacting his judgment at every step of the way 
which leads from the author's diction up through his style and 
thought to the author himself, and in many other ways it places 
the pupil on the best possible footing with the authors whose 
acquaintance it is his business, as well as his pleasure, to make. 

Short estimates of the leading authors, made by the best 
English and American critics, have been inserted, most of them 
contemporary with us. 

The author has endeavored to make a practical, common- 
sense text-book: one that would so educate the student that 
ae would know and enjoy good literature. 

Effingham Maynaed & Co., Publishers, 



A Treatise on Physiology and Hygiene. 

For educational Institutions and the General Reader. By Joseph C. 
HuicmsoN, M.D., President of the New York Pathological So- 
ciety; Vice-President of the New York Academy of Medicine; 
Surgeon to the Brooklyn City Hospital ; and late President of the 
Medical Society of the State of New York. Fully Illustrated with 
numerous elegant Engravings. 12mo. 300 pages. 

1. The Plan of the Work is to present the leading facts and prin- 
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well as by general reader* not familiar with the subject. 2. The Style 
is terse and concise, yet intelligible and clear ; and all useless technical- 
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those on which it is believed all person? should be informed, and that 
are proper in a work of this class. 4. The Subject-matter is brought up 
to date, and includes the results of the most valuable of recent re- 
searches. Neither subject — Physiology or Hygiene — has been elabor- 
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due weight, consideration, and space. 5. The Engravings are numer- 
ous, of great artistic merit, and are far superior to those in any other 
work of the kind, among them being two elegant colored plates, one 
showing the Viscera in Position, the other, the Circulation of the 
Blood. 6. The Size of the work will commend itself to teachers. It 
contains about 300 pages, and can therefore be easily completed in one 
or two school terms. " 

"This book is one of the very few school-books on these subjects 
which can be unconditionally recommended. It is accurate, free from 
needless technicalities, and judicious in the practical advice it gives on 
Hygienic topics. The illustrations are excellent." — Boston Jour- 
nal of Chemistry* 

"Its matter is judiciously selected, lucidly presented, attractively 
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plates and diagrams, they are not only clear and intelligible to begin- 
ners, but beautiful specimens of engraving. I do not see that any 
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the National Medical College, Washington, 1>. C. 

Ths above work is the most popular work and most widely used text-book 
on these subjects yet published. 



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Language Lessons— Grammar— Composition- 
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A COMPLETE COURSE IN FOUR BOOKS. 



I. Graded Lessons in English. An Elementary English Gram- 
mar. 164 pp., 16mo. Bound in Linen. 

II. Higher Lessons in English. 280 pages, lCmo. Bound in Cloth. 
By Alonzo Reed, A. M., Instructor in English Grammar in Brooklyn 
Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute ; and Brainerd Kellogg, A. M. ( 
Professor of English Language and Literature in Brooklyn Colle- 
giate and Polytechnic Institute. 

A Complete Course in Grammar and Composition, in Only Two 
Books. The two books completely cover the ground of grammar 
and composition, from the time the scholar usually begins the study 
until it is finished in the High School or Academy. 

A Text-Book on Rhetoric. Supplementing the development 
of the Science with exhaustive practice in Composition. A Course 
of Practical Lessons adapted for use in the High Schools and Acade- 
mies and in the Lower Classes of Colleges. By Brainerd Kellogg, 
A. M., Professor of English Language and Literature in the Brooklyn 
Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, and one of the authors of Reed 
& Kellogg's " Graded Lessons in English," and " Higher Les: ons in 
English." 276 pages, 12mo. 

A Text-Book on English Literature, adapted for use in High 
Schools and Academies, and in the Lower Classes of Colleges By 
Brainerd Kellogg, A. M., Professor of the English Language and 
Literature in the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute ; 
author of "A Text-Book on Rhetoric," and one of the authors of 
Reed & Kellogg's " Graded Lessons in English, 1 ' and "Higher Les- 
sons in English." 

PUBLISHED BY CLARK & MAYNARD, 

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A HAND-BOOK OF 'MYTHOLOGY: 
Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome. 

ILLUSTRATED FROM ANTIQUE SCULPTURES. BY E. M. 
BERENS. 330PP. 16i|0, CLOTH. 

The author in this volume givesW a very graphic way a 
lifelike picture of the deities of classics times as they were con- 
ceived and worshiped by the ancients lemselves, and thereby 
aims to awaken in the minds of young students a desire to be- 
come more intimately acquainted with t e noble productions of 
classical antiquity. 

In the legends which form the second oortion of the work, a 
picture, as it were, is given of old Greek life ; its customs, its 
superstitions, and its princely hospitalities ft greater length than 
is usual in works of the kind. 

In a chapter devoted to the purpose, some interesting par- 
ticulars have been collected respecting the public worship of 
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count of their principal festivals. 

The greatest care has been taken that no single passage 
should occur throughout the work which could possibly offend 
the most scrupulous delicacy, for which reason it may safely be 
placed in the hands of the young. 



1** RECOMMENDATIONS. 

" The importance of a knowledge of the myths and legends of 
ancient Greece and Rome is fully recognized by all classical teachers 
and students, and also by the intelligent general reader; for our poems, 
novels, and even our daily newspapers abound in classical allusions 
which this work of Mr. Berens' fully explains. It is appropriately 
illustrated from antique sculptures, and arranged to cover the first, 
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the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Greek and Roman festivals. Part 
II. is devoted to the legends of the ancients, with illustrations. Every 
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ton, Mass. 

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form the facts of classic mythology."— ifcv. L. Clark Seetye, Pres. 
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" The subject is a difficult one from the nature and extent of the 
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extreme theories and states clearly the facts with modest limits of 
interpretation. I think the book will take well and wear well." — C. F. 
P. Bancroft, Ph.D., Prin. Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass. 
Price, by matt, , Post-paid, $1.00. 

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